While senior party figures are bullish, the bookmakers are less convinced. You can get odds of 10-3 on the Rainbow making it into government . . . pretty high for what some are portraying as a twohorse race. So will Fine Gael finally do it?

For this weekend at least, this column intends to sit firmly on the fence, instead offering, for your consideration, 10 reasons why Fine Gael will be elected to government and 10 reasons why it will fall short.

Reasons to be cheerful 1) Familiarity breeds contempt. After the guts of 20 years in power, voters should be sick of the sight of Fianna Fail and in the mood for change.

2) Take your points and the goals will come.

The error-ridden, at times hapless, Fine Gael of former elections is no more. There will be no repeat of the Celtic Snail, the offer to repay losses on Eircom shares or dodgy ardfheis sketches. The party is also more united than at any time since the era of Garret the Good.

3) Money makes the world go round. Fine Gael has money to spend and stacks of it. The party has a war chest of 2m. Money can't buy you love, but you can't take on Fianna Fail without the financial muscle.

4) Been there, done that. If the party faithful need convincing that Fianna Fail can be beaten, they should refer back to the local/Euro elections of 2004, when they were neckand-neck with the main government party.

The local elections also produced something Fine Gael had sorely lacked for a long time . . . a raft of hungry young councillors determined to make it to the Dail next year.

5) Polls apart. Private polls carried out by Fianna Fail show that the government is facing serious seat losses. In the published polls, the Rainbow may be unconvincing, but we know that Fine Gael's poll rating is always seriously underestimated. The speed at which Fianna Fail's rating slipped after a brief post-budget giveaway bounce in each of the last three years is also encouraging.

6) Gold at the Enda Rainbow. Okay, maybe not everyone is convinced yet, but there is no doubt Enda Kenny has grown into the job. Affable and genuinely good with people, a general election campaign will suit him down to the ground.

7) Behind every good manf Fine Gael's team of strategists, with director of elections Frank Flannery at the helm, is top quality.

8) Two heads are better than one. Unlike the 2002 disaster, Fine Gael will have an election pact with Labour. History shows us without such a pact, Fianna Fail always wins . . . with one, it's game on.

9) Oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them. Fianna Fail and the PDs have, over the past couple of years, been more error-prone than Basil Fawlty, providing plenty of ammunition for the opposition.

10) Tiocfaidh ar la. After five straight general election defeats, the law of averages suggests Fine Gael is due a win.

Reasons to be fearful 1) The burden of history. Fine Gael has too much ground to make up after its 2002 meltdown. To win, the Rainbow will have to gain 24 seats. That kind of swing has never happened in the history of the state.

2) Trouble with a capital T. It's easy to see where Fine Gael will make gains outside of Dublin, but in the capital city . . . the key election battleground, where the party was obliterated in 2002 . . . it's a lot more difficult.

3) Labour pains. FG needs Labour to gain seats, but the smaller party seems to be just treading water.

4) It's the economy stupid. If the economy is a big issue in the election, the government, after nine years of an economic boom, will win.

5) Where's the beef? The last time Fine Gael successfully went toe-to-toe with Fianna Fail and overturned a big majority, Garret FitzGerald had an innovative, imaginative policy agenda. So far, that appears to be lacking.

6)The most cunningf Bertie Ahern remains unrivalled as an electoral asset and a political strategist.

7) Kissing the hand that feeds. By accident or design (and we all know which it is), hundreds of thousands of voters will be getting their government-subsidised SSIA cheque a couple of weeks before polling day.

8) Budget bliss. The healthy state of the public finances leaves the government well placed to splash cash come December.

9) Fine peaks. More than a few observers believe that Fine Gael peaked too early with its successful local/Euro election results and have gone off the boil a touch lately.

10) Front bench-marking. Fine Gael's front bench was wiped out in 2002, and the lack of experience of the current team, compared to the battle-hardened cabinet, will tell in a long election campaign.