The only people looking happy in Leinster House on Wednesday night as the marathon FG parliamentary party meeting drew to a close were the Fianna Failers, but their jubilation was quickly restrained, for two reasons. First, John Bruton was going to lose, which they believed didn't suit them at all, and second, they couldn't help but feel sorry for their great rivals who were so publicly agonising over their dilemma. "It's like a death," a FG deputy told those who congratulated him on backing the winners. FG deputies and senators dropped in and out of the meeting, but they failed to call the normal 8.30 p.m. vote in the Dail for fear, it was said, that if everyone left the basement there could be last-minute canvassing and a possible regrouping. Those, like Quidnunc, who remember the FF heaves, missed the heady atmosphere, the crowds of supporters from round the country, the yahooing and shouldering of candidates, the mad rush to the winner and the general mayhem that pervaded all of Leinster House on those occasions.
Of the candidates - Jim Mitchell, Michael Noonan and Enda Kenny - Noonan was always the favourite but, once declared, there was a shift towards Kenny, even among supporters of the heave. Noonan is viewed as tough, astute and clever, a polished parliamentary performer but with the vital ingredients of more cop-on and street-cred than Bruton; Kenny is more popular, younger, and he has something FG now believes it must have - the common touch. To beat Bertie Ahern is the aim and some say that of the three, Kenny is most like him.