Some politicians seem to believe that their real mission in life is to wipe the smiles off their opponents faces. So do some commentators, but we'll come to them later.
No doubt the first reaction of many Government backbenchers to the results of the latest Irish Times/MRBI poll was one of relief. The public was in better mood than many commentators had led them to believe.
Satisfaction with the Coalition, at 43 per cent, though six points down on bits best rating recorded on arrival in office, is comfortably close to the average maintained since. The barometer of dissatisfaction, at 47 per cent, has fallen by two points.
Fine Gael's core vote stands, as it did in November 1994, at 20 per cent. It's three points down on the figure reached in June, but that was its best showing for several years.
Labour, at 10 per cent, is far from its 18 per cent record (set in November 1994) but two points better than in June and, its managers dare to hope, on the road to recovery. Democratic Left, also marginally improved, stands at 2 per cent.
So the news for John Bruton, Dick Spring and Proinsias De Rossa is better than some of their nervous colleagues had feared.
As party leaders, too, they fare reasonably well: Mr Bruton, at 52 per cent, is down two points since June; Mr Spring, at 51, is down one; Mr De Rossa, at 43, is up two. But it's when they gaze across the floor at the consternation of the opposition that the faces of Government backbenchers begin to light up.
Their own parties performances are steady rather than spectacular.
Fianna Vail, they suspect, is beginning to flounder and the Progressive Democrats command only half the support they had at the end of 1993. Fianna
Fail's core vote, at 36 per cent, has fallen four points since June. It has not been lower since November 1994 when, with waves of mutual mistrust breaking over the FF-Labour coalition, it sank to 28 per cent.
The high point in FF's core support during the past 3 1/2 years - 43 per cent - was reached in February 1994 and equalled in the first of two surveys taken in November last year.
THE Government's critics might have expected that, on this occasion, even if FF lost on the swings, the PDs would gain on the roundabouts. It didn't happen, though at 5 per cent the PDs' loss of a single point was unremarkable.
More significantly - as confirmation of the opposition's failures the ratings of Bertie Ahern and Mary Harney fell by five and six points respectively to 52 and 56 per cent.
Meanwhile, the ranks of those who have yet to decide how to vote, if at all, suddenly rose to 22 per cent, an increase normally associated with the opening of an election campaign. Some of these figures may seem insignificant. Some are, if taken on their own. A party leader's rating may be unrelated to his or her party's strength.
The unpopularity of Margaret Thatcher didn't keep the Conservatives out of office. Mary Harney is still the most highly rated of the Republic's party leaders. That's not reflected in the strength of the Progressive Democrats.
Your friendly local pollsters are blue in the face (I've seen them) repeating that surveys like the one quoted here are snapshots. They are not, nor are they meant to be, election forecasts. But when all or most of the graphs point in the same direction and the results, as they say, are internally consistent, it's time to sit up and take notice.
If a government is considered satisfactory by substantial number of voters in various age groups, social categories and regions, then it's reasonable to assume that its policies are working and it's getting its message across.
If not, it's time to take another look at the policies, the partnership and the personnel. And what goes for government holds, with few qualifications, for the opposition.
What the current poll suggests, in the context of others in the Irish Times/MRBI series, is that the tripartite Coalition stands secure in a position, if the parties so decide, to fight the next election as a partnership.
While Fianna Fail remains unchallenged as the biggest party in the State, its chances of governing alone show no sign of recovery. And, given its poor performance in opposition, it must worry about the next election before proposing to any likely partner.
Then again, Mr Ahern may care to glance at Mr Bruton and think of the months of waiting between the 1992 election and the series of events which ended with the whole deck of cards toppling into his lap.
But there's more to politics than popularity, more than winning, holding or sharing power - though to judge by some commentators you'd hardly think so.
This week's poll must have been a jolt for the opposition's camp followers in the media who've been acting as though it was only a matter of time before the mistake of November 1993 was rectified. HE mistake of 1993, you may have forgotten, robbed Mr Ahern of power at the moment when the hand over seemed a formality.
While the FF leader himself has never joined the chorus, the camp followers are far from diffident.
Their case is that, while it may be necessary to put up with coalition governments until the people come to their senses, having to make do with a Fine Gael led centre left coalition is more than card carrying begrudgers can bear.
You will find them, more often in the Sunday papers than elsewhere, complaining about Dick Spring and Proinsias De Rossa and the determination of John Bruton that their parties should work together.
This, they say, is a boring government presumably because the parties, by and large, keep their differences to themselves and their minds on their business.
And it shows, though the strong - and strengthening economic performance is a result of the shrewd policies, not of one administration but of several and of a series of agreements in which the community came first.
Some would prefer the good old days which featured not only national agreements but Greencore, Goodman and Telecom.
At present, the greatest danger is from powerful and in some cases aggressive interest groups and the real risk that, in the rush to meet their demands, those for whom President Mary Robinson promised to speak will remain unheard.