Adi Roche was supposed to be having breakfast in Paddy's Place, the little cafe in Dublin's fish, fruit and vegetable market. This was no ordinary engagement, because it was here that Mary Robinson launched her Dublin campaign over a large Irish fry - even though, as Labour Senator Joe Costello admitted: "I don't think she ate much of it."
But there was no Adi in Paddy's Place yesterday morning. The Irish Times/ MRBI poll had served up a less palatable breakfast and Ms Roche, unlike Mary Robinson, couldn't push any of it to the side of the plate. So, while she and her team digested the findings elsewhere, it was left to Dick Spring to lead a slightly sad-looking entourage around the market.
The fish area was being washed out by the time they arrived, a fate that seemed to threatened the Roche campaign itself. But the canvassers put a brave face on it. Mr Spring stopped to chat to one of the few fish workers left who, as luck would have it, was gutting ray.
At another time, this would have been a cue for a joke about recent controversies. But maybe because he thought the chapter closed, or maybe because he was a bit gutted himself, Mr Spring bit his lip and passed on.
When some of the market people asked if something could be done about the leaking roof, Senator Costello told them the building was being included in HARP, the Historic Area Rejuvenation Project, and advised them to join a relevant committee. Then it was back to the other HARP, the Help Adi Recover Project; and when every available hand in the market had been shaken, the campaigners adjourned to Paddy's Place to see if the oracle could be worked again, in the candidate's absence.
The recovery attempt was well under way by lunch-time, when word was emerging that the campaign would henceforth target Dublin and the left vote in particular. As if to hammer the message home, almost the entire left-wing membership of the last government descended on Grafton Street for Ms Roche's scheduled walkabout.
"There's nothing happening in the Dail - Fianna Fail have no legislative programme," explained Dick Spring, who had recovered his quipping faculties. But there was no disguising the message that had gone out: all hands on deck.
The turn-out included a poignantly presidential-looking Michael D. Higgins and, if he wasn't enough to haunt Mr Spring, a reminder of another selection controversy - MEP Bernie Malone - was also part of the welcoming committee.
When the candidate arrived at the rendezvous point, she looked as enthusiastic as ever. But there was a noticeable change in her attitude to the backing music, provided by a group of drummers, the Happy (and, it has to be said, clappy) City Samba Band. Ms Roche smiled at the music, but that was as dramatic as her physical movements got. And when the photographers asked her to have a go at the drums herself, she demurred with the look of a woman under orders.
The event took a shock twist when Fianna Fail's famed PR man, P.J. Mara, suddenly loomed in the midst of the gathering. Had he gone over to the other side, we wondered? Was his the dark hand behind the new Adi? But Mr Mara's presence was purely accidental and when he noticed his surroundings, he looked briefly like a sheep who'd walked into a wolf convention. Legendary spindoctor that he is, he spun sharply and was gone.
Even without P.J., Ms Roche's sweep down Grafton Street was a public relations triumph. The lunch-bound public was assailed by half-a-dozen noisy drummers and a cabinetful of familiar faces, and what was left was easily mopped up by the candidate in a welter of hugs, kisses and handshakes.
At the bottom of the street, the campaign bus awaited. Like the breakfast, other events in the day's hopelessly optimistic schedule had had to be cancelled. But it went deeper than intended when someone asked the question: "Where does she go from here?". Up, her campaigners will be hoping.
