As the PDs gather in Limerick, the home of their founder, for their annual conference this weekend, the party faithful hope that they can defy expectations, writes Stephen Collins.
The big challenge facing the Progressive Democrats is how they can buck the trend of their own history in the next general election campaign. Since the party was founded 20 years ago, every successful election has been followed by a disastrous one. So, given the remarkably good showing last time out, the omens for next year are not good.
The PDs, though, have always defied expectations in election campaigns, doing well when they were written off and doing badly when the pundits believed they were going to do well. On that basis, the party is capable of defying the consensus that it is bound to lose seats next time out.
This weekend, the PDs make another pilgrimage to Limerick, the home base of the party's founder, Des O'Malley, for their national conference. Electoral strategy is one of the key issues for debate during the conference and the delegates will also get an opportunity to tell their leaders the kind of issues they would like to see being put to the voters during the campaign.
When it comes to elections, the PDs have never been ones for half- measures and all have ended in either triumph or disaster.
The party has contested five general elections since it was founded in 1985. After the first great electoral triumph in 1987, when it won 14 seats, the party plummeted to six two years later. In 1992 it was back up to eight, but half of those seats were lost in the meltdown of 1997.
Then in 2002 the number of TDs doubled from four to eight.
The paradox about the party's electoral performance is that after its two worst results, it ended up in government, while it remained in Opposition after the good showings of 1987 and 1992. The only election where the party both did well and got into government was last time out in 2002. How they will do in 2007 is still anybody's guess.
Michael McDowell had a huge impact on the last election campaign when he climbed a lamp-post in Ranelagh and hoisted up the poster "One Party Government - NO Thanks". That stunt helped to keep the PDs at the centre of the campaign. But the big question is, how they can do the same thing next time.
Mr McDowell has already tried to put the PDs at the centre of the campaign, long before it even starts, with his "meat in sandwich" speech of two months ago.
"Regardless of which party leads a government, the defining partner [ in terms of policy] is the junior partner," he said. "It's not the more bulky bread which gives a sandwich its taste. Rather, it's the meat which gives a sandwich its flavour." His attempt to move the debate away from the horse race between Fianna Fáil and the Fine Gael/Labour alliance is clearly designed to keep attention fixed on his own party.
He certainly has a point in claiming that the smaller party in government over the past 30 years, whether it was Labour or the PDs, has had an influence out of all proportion to its numbers. However, his real problem is to convince enough people that the policies the PDs are offering represent a vital contribution to government that would be lost in their absence.
The slogan for this weekend's conference is "Ireland's Success is Our Job." This is clearly an attempt to associate the economic success story of the past 10 years with the participation of the PDs in government and the need to keep the party there to ensure that the success story continues.
The decision of the PDs to go back to the well for more tax-cutting policies suggests a belief that a significant number of voters out there are still in the market for more cuts.
Low tax has been a core value of the PDs since the party's foundation and there is no arguing with the fact that it has delivered on those policies, with more than a little help from its friend, former minister for finance Charlie McCreevy.
However, since Mr McCreevy's departure to Brussels there has been a general assumption that further tax cuts are off the political agenda. Fianna Fail has shifted the focus to social spending, while the thrust of Fine Gael/Labour policy has been to emphasis the shortcomings in services.
It is probably no surprise that in a tight corner, the PDs should go back to what they know best, tax and the economy. However, what is puzzling is that the party put itself in the position that it does not have an economic minister at the Cabinet table.
The decision of Mary Harney to take over the health portfolio inevitably lessened the impact the PDs could have over economic policy.
Even more critically, her decision to take over the Department of Health represented a huge risk and it will not be clear until after the election whether it has paid off.
Her move in the autumn of 2003 gave the Tánaiste very little time to generate real improvements in the health system, although she did promise that there would be tangible results within a year.
With complaints about A&E departments still dominating the media, it is hard to argue that the public has seen real improvements.
Ms Harney clearly believed that she would be able to make headway with the vested interests in the health service. Her laudable attempts to get hospital consultants to agree to a new public health contract has met with ferocious resistance, and other planned reforms have met with a similar response from other groups in the system. She only has another year to show progress.
In Justice, Mr McDowell has similarly been embroiled in controversy, but at least he will have had a full term to show some results. His reform of the Garda Síochána should be complete by the time of the election, to complement his success in ending the long-running saga of prison overtime.
He also carried his citizenship referendum with a huge popular vote in the teeth of media opposition and, most critically of all, he stood up to the IRA and won the battle on criminality when it seemed the Taoiseach and the British prime minister had caved in.
Yet for all that, the crime figures, particularly the number of gun crimes, are a serious embarrassment. Despite the Minister's repeated determination to tackle the problem of serious crime it has got worse rather than better and, if it is still as bad at the time of the election, it will be thrown in Mr McDowell's face by his opponents.
The high profile of both Ms Harney and Mr McDowell should enable the party to stay in the public eye during the next election campaign in spite of the attention that will inevitably be attracted by the two alternative government formations on offer.
The critical factor will be whether they are able to articulate a set of policies that will attract enough support to put them in a pivotal position when it comes to forming the next government with whatever grouping emerges with the strongest support.
Mr McDowell has said that he could just as easily serve with Enda Kenny as with Bertie Ahern. Of course Pat Rabbitte will have something to say about one of those options. But in the end the number of seats won by the various parties will determine who is capable of exerting the most influence.