Sinn Féin strategy: Sinn Féin's 2007 Dáil election campaign began on Thursday in Jurys hotel in Dublin, writes Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent
Left without the baggage caused by the IRA's arsenal of death, Sinn Féin now believes the Republic's political system lies at its feet.
In 2005, the party was confident it was going to win approximately eight Dáil seats and had to hide its gloom when left with five.
Now it is targeting 10, and maybe more if the 10 per cent held consistently by the party in recent opinion polls is replicated in the ballot box.
The core Sinn Féin vote is nothing if not solid.
In Meath earlier this year, Cllr Joe O'Reilly held the party's share at the height of the crisis caused by the brutal killing of Robert McCartney.
Up to now, Sinn Féin has fought its campaigns on local issues, perhaps, but its profile and brand have depended on events in Northern Ireland.
Proof that this is true is hardly needed, but if so it was there in abundance in Jurys as Gerry Adams welcomed the end of the IRA's 35-year campaign.
Budding TDs such as David Cullinane, Pearse Doherty and John O'Dwyer surrounded Adams, sending out the subliminal message that they were somehow "players", which, of course, they were not.
Minus the whiff of IRA cordite, Sinn Féin policies will be examined by those most likely to vote, which they have never bothered to do until now.
Perhaps a significant number will like what they see, perhaps they will not. Perhaps it will not matter if the election is fought on mood, not detail.
But it could. Currently, Sinn Féin wants to do a lot of politically popular things, such as increase health, social welfare and education spending.
So far, so predictable. However, such changes cost.
The health budget would add €3 billion a year, or about 15 per cent, to the higher tax rate.
Corporation tax, so crucial from the point of view of foreign investment, should rise from 12.5 to approximately 17.5 per cent, it demands.
Capital gains tax, now at 20 per cent, should return to 40 per cent, Sinn Féin argues - even though the income from it has multiplied five times since it was cut.
In addition, it wants those earning over €100,000 to pay tax at over 50 per cent, and to increase employers' PRSI.
Undoubtedly, some voters who have not supported Sinn Féin until now might back such policies, if convinced the IRA has gone for good.
However, its agenda and its past could equally bring out occasional voters, or those who never bothered to vote at all, deliberately to vote against the party.
If nothing else, election 2007 is set to be the most exciting contest the Republic has enjoyed for two decades.
"The thing, though, is that the Republic has changed enormously over the last 15 years. Sinn Féin hasn't," said one Fianna Fáil figure.
In other words, those most likely to vote want BMWs, foreign holidays and the good things in life, not higher taxes, no matter how ignoble.
Sinn Féin's organisation in the Republic is not a patch on its "Risen People" Northern equivalent, even though election battalions will move across the Border in good time.
Its TDs, led by Cavan/ Monaghan Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, have done little to impress inside the Dáil, though it has interesting possibilities such as Pearse Doherty in Donegal, or Killian Forde in Dublin North East.
Instead, Adams, Martin McGuinness and Mitchel McLaughlin remain the public face, though Southern voters will not have the option of voting for them.
A Sinn Féin surge of any kind will make it more difficult for Fine Gael and Labour to remove Fianna Fáil from power.
In the local elections, most of Sinn Féin's gains in Dublin came at Fianna Fáil's expense, but Labour could be the ones most at risk in a general election.
Fianna Fáil's organisation, though far from its peak, can be expected to go into overdrive in constituencies where Sinn Féin lies in wait.
Labour's parliamentary party, however, could suffer some more retirements before polling day, while few young faces are appearing.
If Sinn Féin stays out of post -election coalition machinations, its seats will be effectively "sterilised", reducing Enda Kenny and Pat Rabbitte's pool to eject Bertie Ahern.
If the party does become involved, Sinn Féin could go into coalition with Fianna Fáil, or support it from the outside as a minority government. it will have to make that clear during the campaign itself.
If the Opposition successfully paints Sinn Féin as Fianna Fáil's escape option if all else fails, that will hurt if the public is indeed in a mood for change.
The key to election 2007 may be not so much how many people want to vote Sinn Féin, but how many want to get rid of Fianna Fáil.