THIS election is all about the Labour Party. Why? Because in the last election they got the new voters. They got the protest voters.
They got the floating voters.
The result hugely changed the party's Dail status. It suddenly became the natural party of coalition, regardless of who the larger partner might be. The Labour Party went into government, first with one partner, then with another. Nearly a case of "and they all lived happily ever after".
The fact that governments pass their sell-by-date and have to go to the country means that there is no such thing as "happily ever after" for most politicians. Labour Party people who got elected last time around - on the back of the protest vote - now have a real problem.
Their problem is that the apocryphal floating voter is, for the most part, politically uninvolved and from the upper and middle classes.
Traditionally, once Labour people are elected they stay elected. This is by good constituency work; by time spent in clinics and assiduous follow-through on every constituent's problem, whether it be a leaking cistern or a personal pothole.
But floating voters of the upper and middle classes do not go to clinics. Their cisterns, leaking or not, do not require political intervention. So, although they may, on the crest of a wave, vote for a particular candidate (in the case of the last general election, a Labour member), they have no subsequent need to stay in what might be called a "customer mode" - they are not in continuing personal contact with the politician.
As a result, the politician does not have a service relationship with the voter. The voter, therefore, gets no information about the politician at first hand.
So either the politician becomes invisible (because he or she is not in the media) or becomes highly visible. But if the politician is in government, the very floating voter who voted in protest quickly sees him or her as part of the "establishment" and develops an appropriate hatred.
Not only will the floating voter who floated towards the Labour not float towards them this time but the new voter won't either. The new voter, of necessity, is a young voter, and young voters either don't vote at all or vote against the status quo.
ONE OF the unintentionally funny political cliches of the last 25 years has been the one about the proportion of the population under 25 years. Politician after politician has claimed great delight over the many teens and pre-teens in the country. None of them seem to realise, however, that if a big chunk of your voting population is young, you end up with an unalterable volatility of vote.
It's no accident that, since 1969, at every general election the incumbents have been turfed out and a new combination handed the reins of power.
That fact is the chilly factor which is now sending shivers up Labour spines. They can't - and they won't - hold that ephemeral floating vote unless they've managed to solidify it and make it a party core vote. And Labour has not done that, partly because the left-of-centre identity has become softened at the edges.
Some 20 years ago, if you were Labour Party by inclination, you were socialist by definition. And the "enemy" to be fought was capitalism and all its works and pomps.
Today, if you are Labour Party by inclination, you have a wordy self-definition for which nobody would man a barricade. Not only are you not an enemy of capitalism but you are part of a coalition which sees the recent capitalistic success of Ireland as a major triumph.
The Labour Party irritated both the floater and the protester by going into coalition with Fianna Fail. They then irritated them a second time by going into coalition with the Rainbow. This is something of a double disadvantage.
Then add to that disadvantage the flip-over factor in the way voters see Dick Spring. Before the last election, he was the impelling, passionate exposer of immorality, the scalpel which extracted sleaze, the crusader against corruption. Crusaders don't need warmth or humour. In fact warmth or humour might blunt their cutting edge.
But then you put a crusader in government (with the people he was criticising until the day before yesterday) and, in due course, the crusader lives fairly happily with behaviour he would have terminated with extreme prejudice when in opposition. The voter's lip begins to curl. It curls a lot more when the crusader stays in unearned crusader mode, refusing to learn or show openness, charm or flexibility but, instead, acting as if he has a divine right to rule.
Dick Spring's handlers (one must, out of respect, give Fergus Finlay the royal plural) have clearly realised the extent of this problem and have emphasised the need for him to smile and smile. As a result, he has; been almost as emollient as an eel.
However, there was an emollience-break-down at the Labour Party press conference when the leader was asked about the party plans on defamation. Suddenly, we were back to the cold harshness which will influence the vote of every Labour Party candidate throughout the State.
The bottom line is that the Labour Party has to lose and all that needs to be established is the extent of the loss. The Rainbow has to find those lost seats elsewhere and its prospects of finding them are poor.
Some within the Coalition are now actively considering a technicolour government, with the present three parties, the Greens and a few Independents. They're on their own in actively considering such an option - people won't wear it. Nothing in opinion polls or on the ground indicates they will.
The alternative to technicolour government is Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats Built into Fine Gael ads is the repeated claim that Fianna Fail can't coalesce, as if there were some genetic anti-coalition fault in the Fianna Fail DNA.
THERE is no such genetic flaw. The issues that caused problems for Fianna Fail in coalitions were not about policies or about day-to-day co-operation and work capacity between Fianna Fail and its partners in government. In each case it all hinged on personalities.
Bertie Ahern was not one of those personalities. In fact, he is the living demonstration that there is no incapacity within Fianna Fail for co-operation.
He has the genius for consensus and for conflict-management that is needed in a coalition where the larger party does not simply surrender to the smaller partner.
The electorate is now offered a choice of Taoiseach. There is the one who achieves stability by surrender. And there is Bertie Ahern, who can achieve stability by consensus.