MEDIA WATCH: Whatever their other advantages, opinion polls can put a dampener on the democratic process. With Fianna Fáil so far ahead, according to the figures, it must be very difficult for those who seek to put that party out of government to appear optimistic.
Charles Haughey used to say the only poll that mattered was on election day and it was no doubt in that spirit that Michael Noonan took calls from listeners on Pat Kenny's radio programme.
It was a chance for the Opposition leader to expound his policies without being contradicted by any other politician.
Noonan has interesting ideas on easing the problems of first-time house-buyers and making the tax system more equitable. It was probably the first time since the election began that I have heard such a clear exposition of Fine Gael policy on radio or television.
But with a few exceptions, the listeners seemed to be more interested in style than substance. The alleged "negativity" of the Fine Gael campaign was raised by several callers.
Even Noonan's approach on the Kenny phone-in was too low- key. Instead of passion and a hint of the hunger for power, we got the neutral tone of a lawyer giving a client "objective" advice that, yes, his best interests at the end of the day lay in voting Fine Gael.
He was effective in outlining a critique of the quality of life in the age of the Celtic Tiger and querying the kind of country where young people can get "kicked into a coma" when they go out for the night. But soon the programme was into tax rates and house prices.
It would be a pity if concerns about the quality of life were dismissed as the slogan of one particular party. Marian Finucane invited Archdeacon Gordon Linney on to her programme to expand on comments he made last Sunday about the ills of Irish society.
I cheered for Linney when he said: "It is no accident that the word individualisation crept into the tax code in recent times. It's the culture of every one for him or herself, echoing Mrs Thatcher's famous phrase: 'There is no such thing as society'."
One senses that in Michael Noonan we have a politician who understands the current malaise of Irish society but whose efforts to explain his diagnosis are frustrated by the format imposed by the exaltation of image.