Budget will define FF - but watch Cowen build his power too

ON the night before the 1992 general election, a group of us working on the campaign arranged to travel down to Longford where the then Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, was holding his traditional eve-of-poll event.

On the way down from Dublin to Longford we took a detour to Birr, Co Offaly. There, Brian Cowen - the local political hero who had recently been promoted to Cabinet by Reynolds - was holding his own eve-of-poll event. It was an open-air rally in the town’s main square, a tradition which had been inaugurated by his father Bernard Cowan in the 1960s.

It was a remarkable evening, the centrepiece of which was a lengthy “back of a lorry” speech by the candidate. It was the kind of event which those of us who are part of the mass media political generation don’t get to see very often.