KEVIN MYERS AT LARGE: Eureka! We've found the man to rescue us from our electoral ennui. "He has leadership qualities, he has charisma, and he has a very caring attitude," declared a friend and party colleague the other day, announcing the imminent involvement of this man in electoral politics.
Who is he, this champion with such a super-caring charisma? Well, of course, it's none other than that statesman and full-time spreader of peace and caring, Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair, who this very morning - praise be the Lord! - is to be released from her majesty's care at Maghaberry prison.
And the foregoing and unmistakeable description of him comes from his chum, Mr John White, himself probably a very caring individual; and, oh yes, Mr White is a bit of a murderer, too, and no slouch in the charisma department either.
Charisma. That's the one quality lacking in our politics, as this election has revealed with devastating clarity. Just look at our leaders.
Had life just been a little bit different, Bertie Ahern might have been Postman Pat, whistling cheerily as he shouldered his bag up the front path. Michael Noonan could have run his own pork-butcher's shop, complete with striped apron and straw boater, and proud as Punch of his sausages. And Ruairí Quinn would have been a science master, patiently explaining Newton's Third Law of Dynamics to the dimmest boy in the class.
Compare them with Northern leaders - John Hume, David Trimble, Seamus Mallon, Mark Durkan, Peter Robinson, Ian Paisley, Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness, not to mention that nice, caring Mr Adair.
All of these Ulstermen burn with a rage of some kind or other. They live dangerously, toiling at the coalface of raw emotions. One mistake could prove fatal as they hew at the thin seam of political possibility, with lethal pockets of methane just inches away, while around them pit-props groan beneath a vast weight of popular expectation. Persuasive charisma is as essential in such a place as the pickaxe and the canary.
Politicians in the Republic, conversely, are in a porridge-making competition. They all agree on most of the central ingredients, and there's only so much you can do with porridge. You can't put strawberries in it, or liver, or egg, or onions, or Marmite or diced carrots, or lobster or ice-cream.
All versions of porridge taste pretty much the same, so charisma isn't a requirement for porridge chefs. After all, since no one's going to die if a chef over-oats his recipe, they don't need to have especially persuasive qualities to get people to sample their dish.
So happy is the land whose politics resemble a porridge-making competition in the Scottish Highlands, where McTavish's recipe is almost identical to McIntosh's. Happy is the land where elections are exercises in boredom and suffocating localism.
Happy is the land whose leaders lack magnetism; where a Johnny Adair is not hailed as a charismatic leader with caring qualities.