It's still the economy, stupid. According to the Taoiseach he may not hold the general election until July 2002. If that really is his intention he is losing the renowned cunning and political nous for which he is famous.
At the rate the economy is flattening out he may have to think again. The economy was to be his trump card. Forget about health and housing queues. Lobby groups seeking to amend the Constitution on abortion or the rights of the disabled can be held at bay.
The Nice legacy, despite Fine Gael obstruction, can be kicked to touch. The Belfast Agreement is more problematic but people down here are accustomed to entrenched divisions north of the Border. People may be stressed juggling the needs of childcare with the need to repay the mortgage, travelling longer distances to work or taking longer to travel shorter distances in congested, uprooted streets. But the economy is booming, so the feelgood factor will transcend all that.
Or so Bertie Ahern thought.
Well, the feelgood factor is still out there but it is beginning to fade faster than anybody predicted. The latest industrial output figures are much worse than expected. Redundancies are climbing and the housing boom is finally over. Ironically, we may be protected from the worst of the shakeout from the downturn in the US by the strength of the dollar and recent competitive advantage. That may not last forever.
The Fianna Fail strategists didn't figure it this way. Bertie's macho stance about 2002 was predicated on the reflected glow of the economic boom continuing even if growth rates moderated somewhat. Another McCreevy-style election budget would keep the better off amongst the electorate - the section that is certain to vote - sweet.
How quickly things change. The Taoiseach's "dodgy" period is already with us. Even if we are better positioned to weather the fallout than in the past, come next summer things could be quite hairy. It's only a short few months ago since we were dispatching travelling roadshows to exotic locations such as Beijing, Newfoundland and South Africa to encourage 250,000 workers to these shores over the next few years. Well, FAS had better start reinventing itself again because that gig is over.
Given the real stress between Bertie Ahern and Charlie McCreevy, the Taoiseach has now good reason to fear what McCreevy will do if permitted to bring in another budget. The economy will not be able to withstand another reckless budget redistributing wealth upwards. By next summer, projects like the Bertiebowl will look very foolish indeed.
Ruairi Quinn's question about how we have spent the fruits of the boom will be more centre stage from here. Instead of a general election conducted at the peak of the boom, if the Taoiseach delays until next year redundancies will have risen further, many people will be hurting in the housing market and anxiety will have risen about job security in homes where two incomes are essential to pay the mortgage.
And Ruairi Quinn's audit on how we conducted ourselves - meaning how the Government conducted itself - during the boom years will be the subject of general discussion. Not the ideal backdrop to a general election for a Government wedded to "the best of all possible worlds" mantra.
No wonder Michael Noonan is distancing himself from the proposed Forum on Nice. From here on, there will be no legs up for Bertie. The Taoiseach's predisposition for consensus has served him well but if he is serious about 2002, he had better start learning to live with adversarial politics.
Bertie wouldn't proceed with the judicial misconduct referendum, for example, because he needed consensus; but when Fine Gael and Labour offered to pass his dual mandate Bill the only consensus that interested the Taoiseach was with his loyal Independents. It was the same on business funding of politics.
Incidentally, observing events this week at the Four Courts and at Dublin Castle that very issue may feature more prominently in the minds of the thinking electorate than the Taoiseach has calculated.
If the Forum on Nice does come into existence, it is likely that Sinn Fein will elbow aside the more timid "no" voices and become the main advocates of the Euro-sceptic case. This is not because it holds original insights into the defects manifest in the treaty. Remember that on no less than two occasions Brian Cowen gave Gerry Adams a bloody nose when it came to knowledge of the Nice Treaty.
Rather, it is because Sinn Fein will use any Nice Forum as a shop window to recycle its candidates for the general election in the Republic. It has done so expertly during and after the Good Friday agreement. Faces who have no involvement and, so far as we know, nothing to contribute, have posed so consistently at Adams's shoulder that they can be described in Sinn Fein literature as "Sinn Fein negotiators" on the agreement.
Notwithstanding the best efforts of Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern the agreement seems poised on a knife-edge. The "negotiators" who were so opposed to military alliances in Europe during the Nice Referendum seem less preoccupied with military matters when it comes closer to home.
Forcing a further election in Northern Ireland is not the worst option from their point of view.
At the same time Sinn Fein needs to take care not to push the boat out too far. Drapier detects that the tolerance shown it by the constitutional parties over recent years is beginning to fray at the edges. Bringing it into democratic politics was the objective but not with Semtex in the basement and guns in the cloakroom.
As Bertie packs his bucket and spade for Kerry there is a lot of rethinking to be done. Meanwhile, what odds on July 2002?