The Fine Gael leader, Mr Kenny, set out his electoral stall in Galway on Saturday when he promised to restore public trust in politics and to make his party the nucleus of an alternative government involving the Labour Party and others.
It was fairly predictable stuff. As the party of law and order, Fine Gael would deal with those thugs who had given "the finger" to the nation. It would reform the health services, invest in education and ensure the family remained at the heart of the community.
With the local and European elections only seven months away, Mr Kenny made the most of a televised address at the one-day conference. He castigated the Coalition Government for failing the people on crime, for giving politics a bad name and for not telling the truth. Fine Gael, he said, would restore trust and integrity to politics. In terms of continuity, the message owed more to John Bruton than to Michael Noonan with its emphasis on the family and on giving hard-working people the kind of society they wanted.
These are difficult times for the party. For the past 12 months, opinion polls have shown its average support running at 22 per cent - precisely the figure it gained in the last, disastrous general election campaign when it won just 31 seats. It was reduced to three seats in Dublin.
Since then, a great deal of effort has gone into implementing the Flannery report on internal reforms. A recruitment campaign added thousands of new members. And selection conventions for the local elections were well attended. The party's performance in the Dáil has improved. But, in spite of adopting a number of controversial positions, such as withholding benchmark pay awards, it has failed to spark the imagination of the public.
The Fine Gael leadership believes that situation will change if the party enjoys success in the coming local and European elections. On the last occasion, in 1999, at the height of the Celtic Tiger boom, the results were good for Fianna Fáil, reasonable for Fine Gael and poor for the Labour Party. A bad showing by Fianna Fáil, next June, would lend weight to Mr Kenny's proposal for an alternative government involving Fine Gael. It would also contribute to leadership problems within Fianna Fáil. But nothing can be taken for granted. A wind from the opinion polls is certainly blowing in the Coalition Government's face, but Mr Kenny and the Fine Gael party will have a difficult task in translating that advantage into local authority seats.