THE notices don't quite say "No Politicians Need Apply", but it's as near as dammit. It started maybe two elections ago: householders sticking bits of paper on their front doors so that arriving canvassers would learn that a ring on this doorbell would not be appreciated after, say, 8 p.m.
During the last general election, the message got more blunt. In some cases, the note indicated that to knock on this particular door would ensure the occupants didn't vote for you.
Offensive? Not at all. Assertion of the right to privacy, and wonderfully impersonal into the bargain. If you're the candidate, your only dilemma is whether or not you'll put a leaflet in through the letterbox. If they don't want to answer the door to a politician, maybe they don't want their porch littered with leaflets, either.
Not that you have time for delicate weighing of the leaflet decision. You must keep your brand new but carefully broken in walking shoes moving.
Because even if they don't put notices on their doors, constituents don't want to be frightened by a ringing doorbell after a certain hour, don't want to be pulled away from Fair City in case they miss Paul and Nicola sorting out their problems, and certainly don't want to miss the nine o'clock news.
At the beginning, you notice plants in the gardens. That's a lovely fuchsia, you think, I'd love to get a slip of it to see would it take in the sunshiney corner of my own front garden. Within days, you see nothing but the next closed door with its possibilities and threats.
The possibility is that the householders will be delighted to see you, hold onto your hand after shaking it, tell you how much they admired you for something you achieved.
The threats are varied.
There's the implacably impassive politeness approach, where the person who opens the door greets you courteously, listens to you silently and sends you on your way without any indication of, attitude or intent.
There's the person with a pent up grind - against society, your party or a personality, within your party who gives it to you in chronological and emotional detail. And occasionally there's the one who simply tells you to expletive off.
Canvassing may be the toughest form of job seeking, but at least you are surrounded by people who are rooting for you. Even on the wettest, coldest day, there is a mad friendship and fun in the exercise: a hoarding of the gaffes and glitches to be told again and again later on. And always the possibility that at the end of it, you might be elected.
Not only elected, but you might be in government. Not only in government, but you might be a minister. Not only a minister, but you might get to change some aspect of Irish life for the better. Not only change things for the better, but perhaps make history in the process.
For most TDs, 11.45 a.m. last Thursday was the real beginning of the campaign. For me, it was the end of a political career. A time of nostalgia and kind comments and disconnection. Disconnection by choice - whereas some of those heading for the hustings will be disconnected by the vote of the people.
I WISH them luck and I have sympathy, in advance, for the ones who will sit through count after count, who will hear the reporters talking about the last seat and about them "scraping in" or being "edged out" and when eventually the verdict comes, will try to find generous words to say about the opponent, or worse still, the colleague who has taken the seat.
This election is going to be the Tax Election, The Money in my Back Pocket Election. There's almost a feeling among the general public of liberation overdue: who will rid me of this turbulent tax system?
The short answer seems to be everyone will. Everyone is going to lower taxes, but a coyness broke out at Government level this week about precisely how and how much.
Fianna Fail is the party which - more than any other - has brought in measures which have greatly improved the lifestyle of older people. It has to be the party that leads thinking on - and provision for - ageing.
The Fianna Fail manifesto makes it clear that a radically new approach is being taken to the taxing of our older citizens. The first group to benefit will be the over 755, and this will widen to include all citizens over 65. It is an overdue acknowledgment of the contribution made down through the years by older people, who greatly resent what they see as a penalty in extra time.
Ultimately, though, elections are not won on manifestos. Elections are won the same way managers are chosen: the CV gets looked at, the track record is examined, the plans probed. But then the selectors, consciously or unconsciously, ask themselves, "Do we want to be around this person for the next few years?"
Voters use a kind of tolerance thermometer and, when the mercury rises beyond normal, make the decision that they could riot tolerate a particular candidate or party.
IF THE election were held this week, the tolerance thermometer would greatly favour Fianna Fail and the PDs. If it had been held two weeks ago, it would have favoured the Coalition.
But then the Taoiseach went into the tribunal.
And when the Taoiseach went into the tribunal he told an interesting story about fundraising. The only problem about the story was that it didn't match his earlier story, and all the semantics in the world could not change that.
In fact, trying to put a PR gloss on the situation made it worse. The Irish public doesn't tend to highminded outrage when a politician gets caught out telling two versions of the same story, but the Irish public hates when he later does giftwrapping on them in the belief that people are dumb enough to be convinced.
The Taoiseach has an expensive army of PR advisers, all ready for glossing over tasks. Yet neither he nor they seem to have any real empathy with how real people think and react.
Not only did they underestimate the impact the two versions of the Taoiseach's fundraising story would have, not only did they overestimate the value of semantics as a method of repairing the dent, but it never struck them that if you send five Ministers to a tribunal to answer questions about financial rectitude, it's a visual contradiction in terms to have their massive Mercs neatly parked in line inviting TV cameras to use them as a motif for that night's news - and the coverage in several other programmes and in the newspapers.
So the thermometer now shows greatly diminished tolerance for the Government.
If Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats can avoid getting foot in mouth disease for the duration of the campaign, and I believe they can, the chances of change are good.