You know it's August when the lead weekend story talks of Bertie Ahern getting it wrong by not listening to his "strategists" who advised him to go for an election earlier this year and who now fear the worst. And when these strategists are all unwilling to put their names to the story, then you know it is not just August, but high August.
Maybe the "strategists" are right. Pre-Nice, the North coming on nicely, the economy still relatively cloud-free, Fine Gael still troubled by Telenor, Labour becalmed, maybe May was the time.
But we will never know for sure. May was followed by June - the Nice debacle, the humiliation in South Tipperary, the opinion polling farce, the beginning of significant job losses and, of course, the continuing problems in the health system.
In other words, was there ever any guarantee that a May/June election would have returned the Government to power? The answer is no guarantee, indeed no certainty, that this would happen.
That, and that alone, is the reason why we did not have a May/June election. If, for one second, Bertie Ahern thought he would win, the "national interest" would have had him galloping to the country in a flash.
But he didn't. And he didn't because his own polls, and the best information at his disposal, saw as many potential losses as gains; possibly even more, especially with no real indication of even a limited PD revival on the horizon.
The same polls showed Fine Gael and Labour faring no better. What they did show was an uncertain - in places angry and unpredictable - electorate, one which could go in any one of a number of directions come the election, but most of all an electorate which cannot be taken for granted by any party or politicians.
Garret FitzGerald found that electorate lurking in the long grass waiting to get him in 1987. Albert Reynolds had a similar painful experience in 1992, and Dick Spring still carries the marks of 1997.
Bertie Ahern knows better than most that despite the Celtic Tiger there are many angry groups out there. The farmers will have forgotten - have forgotten - the Government's effective and successful handling of the foot-and-mouth crisis. New grievances are already fomenting and will soon be coming nicely to the boil.
There are many secondary teachers who will never again vote for Fianna Fail, the semi-states are in chaos, the high expectations of Telecom, fuelled in a blaze of publicity by Ministers who conveyed the impression of doing people a personal favour, has hit many people where it really hurts, and as far as the public is concerned the only winners once more are the fat cats.
These are only some of the areas where people are hurting, or feel they have a real grievance. The problems in the health services are systemic and endemic, and no amount of money is going to result in a quick fix.
Drapier has sympathy for Micheal Martin. He has fought hard for more resources, money is pouring in, some wisely, some foolishly, but one way or the other with few results to show. Certainly none which will change the public mood, and certainly not before an election.
Add to all that the various groups who feel the Celtic Tiger has passed them by. They see new Mercs, bigger houses, lavish spending and conspicuous consumption all round, and wonder why it is their kids can't afford even a modest starter home, why they are clogged up in traffic, why their modest, traditional honest aspirations for themselves and their families are seemingly so unfashionable as far as new, official Ireland is concerned.
Drapier said it last year, and will say it again: the Fianna Fail tent at Galway races sends out all the wrong signals, especially at a time when the Celtic Tiger is starting to grate on so many nerves. The gushing and vulgar write-ups of champagne and lobster meals, of millionaires and wannabe millionaires, some of them fresh from the tribunals, all conveying a sense that this is what success in modern Ireland really means, may please some, may provoke charges of begrudgery against those who question or criticise, but anybody who knows Fianna Fail knows how far and foreign it all is to the real ethos of the party. And a party which loses sight of its ethos and roots is a party in trouble.
The other great danger for the Government is one of boredom. A government too long in power loses touch. Ministers are cocooned, protected by their civil servants, often becoming impatient of those who differ or march to a different drum. "Ministeritis" sets in, accompanied by omniscience and impatience. It's happening, and people see it and they don't like it.
Which brings Drapier back to the "strategists", or at least to those of them who were leaking all over last weekend's papers. Their point seems to be that on two key issues, which were not crucial in May, the Government is now vulnerable.
The first of these is the North. The argument is that with this issue unresolved, and increasingly unlikely to be resolved, Bertie is losing one of his great electoral assets.
Drapier sees little merit in this argument. There are no votes down here in the "North", as even Sinn Fein is finding on the doorsteps. Forget the official piety. People down here are bored with it, dislike it, want it resolved and want it to go away. Everybody wants peace in the North, wants a fair system of government and most of all wants to be left alone.
On the North, Bertie Ahern's reputation is unassailable. He has the support of the opposition parties who see his invulnerability and have no desire to upset a sometimes too-cosy consensus; something which from their perspective makes for good politics, certainly cute politics, but which results, too, in certain important questions not always being asked, as John Bruton has pointed out. But no matter what happens in the North, Bertie will not lose a single vote. Nobody is blaming him. He has given of his best, something even his enemies realise.
The other reason given by the strategists is the economic downturn and the job losses. Yes, but there are more people now at work than ever before, the recruitment companies talk of continuing personnel shortages.
And, watching the fallout from Gateway, there was no rerun of Galway's Digital experience. People did not rush to blame the Government. For the most part there was an acceptance that we live in a global economy, and that these things happen and it's a question of next business.
So even with these two new factors, Bertie may well have been right not to have gone to the country last May. He will do no worse next May than he would have done last.