Campaign Trail: The little toddler with a pink bobble hat stared after Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte in St Matthew's Park in Celbridge yesterday afternoon.
Busily gathering the child's things from the back of a car, her mother said, "That's a politician," as if pointing out a seldom-seen species.
The toddler stared and stared and stared and then quickly lost interest, diverted by an interesting piece of fluff on her jacket.
Canvassing is tough work for politicians and candidates of all hues in a commuter town such as Celbridge.
If they come too early, no one is home. If they come too late, they are in the way. If they fail to come, they are the worst in the world.
It is hard to win.
The Labour group had begun the afternoon's work in nearby Sallins in search of a photo opportunity on a barge for the morning papers.
The photographers wanted to capture the Labour team passing under the bridge, but the barge, alas, was tethered and going nowhere.
Snappily dressed in an ensemble finished off by a wide-rimmed hat, local Labour TD Emmet Stagg helpfully offered suggestions. "Who do you think you are? Fellini?" quipped one of the photographers as the Labour leader went on board the barge.
Within minutes, Rabbitte, Stagg and Kildare South TD Jack Wall had squeezed into the window on the prow of the barge, holding coffee mugs, while their byelection candidate, Paddy MacNamara, determinedly held on outside.
"Whose idea was this?" joked the Labour leader, just imagining the photograph that would appear in the papers if MacNamara fell in. "It's like the teddy bears' picnic," replied a Labour official.
The mood in the Labour camp, with just a week to go before the March 11th byelection, is buoyant, though the foundation for the scale of the optimism is not immediately evident.
Local Fine Gael TD Bernard Durkan, according to local lore, recently said half-jokingly that byelections for sitting TDs are like the sound of "digging your own grave".
On this count, at least, MacNamara does have an advantage in that Stagg has actually worked hard on his campaign.
"He was told to slow down at a meeting before Christmas. That's the truth," one colleague has confided, crossing his heart as he spoke.
Of course, the possible rise of MacNamara is preferable in his eyes to a victory of the Leixlip-based Independent Catherine Murphy.
So far, voters in the rapidly growing Kildare-North constituency have defied observers' attempts to read their minds, largely because in most cases they are not thinking about the election at all.
Unless the electorate displays an enthusiasm that they have so far kept well hidden, the poll turnout, which has been dropping consistently over recent general elections, could be little more than in the mid-40s.
"Most people working in Dublin go for a pint on a Friday evening on their way home after a bloody tough week. Are they going to rush home to vote? I don't think so," one seasoned TD said.
Though the other parties are naturally quick to write off the Fianna Fáil candidate, few others do so, even though doubts remain about the attitude that will be taken by supporters of former minister for finance Charlie McCreevy, some of whom are still aggrieved by the circumstances of his departure.
The soundest forecast puts Catherine Murphy (Ind) doing well on the first count, with Áine Brady (FF) behind, but still doing respectably, along with MacNamara and Fine Gael's Darren Scully. From there on, transfers will decide matters.
Fianna Fáil's Brady, who is a teacher in Celbridge, could, and probably should, benefit heavily from the Progressive Democrats senator Kate Walsh, who has a strong local following.
The women's vote, therefore, is key.
Rabbitte shoved his head into the busy Gemini Hair Studios. Quickly declining to go further, he said respectfully, "One can't interrupt a woman under the dryer."
