The Rev Martin Smyth said he slept soundly on Wednesday night after making his decision to stand against Mr David Trimble for the leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party. Thoughts of further unionist division or the ghosts of Terence O'Neill and Brian Faulkner did not prey on his mind. "I am quietly confident," he added.
He does not like being described as a stalking horse because that signifies his is a sacrificial role for some other anti-Belfast Agreement unionist to exploit eventually, Mr Jeffrey Donaldson for example. He is a contender.
He decided to oppose Mr Trimble because of his concern that the UUP leader's Washington comments were a signal of further concessions on the principle of no guns, no government. And that's a principle to which Mr Smyth is firmly locked.
Mr Smyth, the UUP MP for South Belfast, a Presbyterian minister and former head of the Orange Order, has lost faith in Mr Trimble's leadership. Whatever about Mr Trimble's subsequent qualifications of his Washington remark that he could see a situation where the UUP might go back into government with Sinn Fein without prior IRA decommissioning, Mr Smyth believed the UUP leader was about to make further unacceptable compromises.
"It is really about whether the leadership can be trusted to do what has been said, and what the party policy is. There is something wrong with any party that goes on a major platform, and then drops it and says that a manifesto is not really important," said Mr Smyth.
He said Mr Trimble was an experienced politician. He knew what was said in Washington couldn't be unsaid.
Some in the pro-Belfast Agreement unionist camp have been making barbed comments about Mr Smyth's age (he is 68); about how this may be an act of pique because Mr Trimble defeated him for the leadership in 1995 (from Mr Ken Maginnis); about how he has been associated with the "failed policies" of former leader Lord Molyneaux (from some commentators and unionists).
It's mid-morning in his South Belfast constituency office on the Cregagh Road. From morning, he's been posing for photographs and giving one-to-one interviews with journalists.
Wearing a dark pinstriped suit, he is a picture of health, courteous and unruffled. As to the age jibe, he recalled giving a reference for an elderly fellow Presbyterian minister with the comment: "He has more energy than five of the younger men." That's how Mr Smyth feels.
He dismissed the claim by some opponents that this challenge was motivated by sour grapes against Mr Trimble. In the succession to Lord Molyneaux in 1995, Mr Smyth came bottom of the poll, with just 60 votes. "If they want to bandy that around they will know it is not true. At no level would I be prepared to accept the argument of pique."
Mr Smyth is in the mould of Lord Molyneaux: sober, dispassionate and occasionally frustratingly enigmatic. Some pro-agreement unionists argue that he has nothing to offer because he represented, as did Lord Molyneaux, "yesterday's failed unionism".
He will brook no criticism of Lord Molyneaux's unionism. "It is today's unionism and tomorrow's unionism. We are for the Union. The people largely in Northern Ireland, irrespective of their religious, or irreligious, background, are for the Union, but the pressures are on from Dublin, pan-nationalism and, I have to say, from elements of the English establishment, to dissociate Northern Ireland from the Union. In that context it is important for unionists to stand clearly together."
When former unionist leaders Terence O'Neill and Brian Faulkner tried to move to an accommodation with nationalism they were destroyed, but unionism was further divided and weakened. A generation on, would Mr Smyth's challenge not further damage unionism?
"I do not believe this is any more serious for unionism than the path we are already on." He believed if Mr Trimble were defeated the "normal core of the party", including the majority in the pro-agreement camp, would remain in the UUP.
Would there be a split if Mr Smyth were defeated?
"What will happen otherwise I can't guarantee because one is already aware that those in the No camp have been told that if they don't agree with the party policy they should get out, and some have gone out."
Mr Smyth also argued that if he won tomorrow it could help to heal some of the divisions within unionism. "I would like to think that one of the things I can do is to facilitate - not necessarily a realignment of unionism - but that we could work more closely with one another for unionism at a time when nationalism has coalesced."
His opponents point to his poor showing in the 1995 leadership battle but his supporters refer to his topping the poll with some 500 votes at last year's annual general meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council in the election for the four positions of party vice-president. "I think I will do quite well . . . I am quietly confident." He also referred to the November council meeting when 58 per cent voted to go into government with Sinn Fein ahead of IRA decommissioning. The 42 per cent had not gone away.
"The support is out there. The response I am getting is quite confident. There are those who say quite clearly that the 42 per cent is standing very firm, and there are others who are saying that those who voted Yes at that time have moved away from that because subsequent events indicate we are in a position of drift."
His candidature has landed Mr Smyth centre stage but he was calm yesterday. In fact, he might not even make a pitch to the 860-member Ulster Unionist Council tomorrow. Council members knew where he stood.