It was meant to be one of the highlights of the campaign, the photo opportunity that would clinch the vote of every mother in middle Ireland and of the tens of thousands who ensure his every concert is a sell-out: Daniel O'Donnell's public embrace.
The public programme of Dana Rosemary Scallon was light yesterday because she was to spend the afternoon preparing for the Prime Time debate. She planned to pay a low-key visit to the Pavee traveller's centre in North Great Charles Street, Dublin, then visit the Michael H. factory in Ballyfermot, which has made most of the clothes she has worn during the campaign.
There she was to have been "surprised", according to her PR agents, by a visit from O'Donnell, who was flying from Donegal to endorse her campaign.
Alas, it was not to be. His private plane was found to have engine trouble and could not get off the ground. Instead, he publicised his support in a joint radio interview with her on Radio Ireland.
Asked if he was giving her his number one, he said he had decided this a long time ago.
At the factory she posed for photographs with some of its 170 employees, and spotted an outfit she liked.
She wanted to wear it for last night's debate, but it did not include a skirt. The manager offered to make her one, so she had a quick measuring session before leaving the factory.
Earlier, she had met the travelling women who are working in the Pavee Centre, where she was presented with a book of recollections of their history and listened to a recording of their stories and songs made in the 1960s. This is being transcribed as part of a project in the centre.
"Don't lose your roots and your culture. Be proud of it and pass it on," she urged those working on the project.
As the campaign winds down, she and her family are considering the next step. Not winning the Presidency - and they still insist it is possible she will - may not mean the end of her political life.
She said she had been asked to stand in an Oireachtas election by a number of people, and she "would consider" it. She and her family were very keen to move back to Ireland, she said, and had always intended doing so.
However, when the campaign is over - and if she is not facing an inauguration ceremony - she will have to return to the US to put the finishing touches to a new series of 13 programmes, of which recording is 95 per cent complete, for the Catholic television station where she works.