With his job and his reputation on the line, Ahern should this weekend be bothered about everything to do with his party's awful start to Election 2007. The issue is no longer about whether or not the developer Owen O'Callaghan gave Ahern money. Tribunal investigations have unearthed information about Ahern's personal finances that leave open deeply worrying questions, enough for Michael McDowell to contemplate ending his party's 10-year governmental arrangement with Fianna Fail. And with each passing day of controversy and ineptitude in the Fianna Fail campaign, Fine Gael and Labour grow in confidence in what is already the most intriguing general election in a generation.

Own goal number one: the finances Over the past seven days Bertie Ahern has placed his colleagues and his party in an invidious position. By refusing to speak publicly about the matters before the planning tribunal, and not confiding in even his most senior advisors, Ahern has added to the belief that he has something to hide. When Seamus Brennan talked about decent, hard-working Bertie Ahern, it was hard not to think about bundles of cash in sterling and Irish punt notes stuffed into a safe in Ahern's office.

While Green leader Trevor Sargent asked the awkward questions last week, Fine Gael and Labour have remained above the fray. But now this weekend Michael McDowell is having second thoughts about his government partnership with Ahern. The coalition is in perilous territory. A PD withdrawal is hardly credible, but what action can McDowell take if the new information he has received from sources other than the Taoiseach are so dramatically serious?

While this drama has been unfolding, two weekend opinion polls show a contest in which Fianna Fail, while damaged, is still an active participant in the election contest. Yet over the weekend Fianna Fail canvassers are reporting an increase in talk about Ahern, his money and his house.

"They're beginning to shake their heads a bit, " one seasoned party campaigner said of the electorate. "A good reaction but I have a bad feeling, " another foot soldier admitted.

The one person responsible for Fianna Fail's mess is Bertie Ahern. He should have known that details of his confidential dealings with the tribunal would appear in print. They did before. He should also have known that by calling the election at this time the tribunal would become a campaign issue. He refused to answer questions early in the week and provided the now famous eight seconds of silence by not responding to a question on Wednesday. Then on Thursday he engaged in a 10-minute verbal spat with Vincent Browne. No new information emerged but Fianna Fail's manifesto launched was overshadowed. It was another truly appalling reactive media day for Ahern's party.

Last October, in an opinion poll in this newspaper, 55% of respondents said Ahern was wrong to take money from businessmen and friends but support for Fianna Fail actually increased. Fine Gael's support declined. At the time the result might have been determined as much by the public's conclusion about the 'payments-to-Bertie' affair as by their confidence in an alternative government led by Kenny and Rabbitte. It can only be assumed that a public unimpressed by Ahern's story last autumn is not any more impressed by what they are hearing this weekend. Second time around, with new revelations about Ahern's financial peculiarities the public . . . as only the next set of opinion polls will reveal . . . may now be willing to give the alternative another look.

Own goal number two: the campaign We have never seen the likes of it. A breakfast-time run to Aras an Uachtarain on a Sunday morning, ministers turning on their radios to hear the Dail had been dissolved and a general election was under way, a tight-lipped Taoiseach refusing to take questions amid new revelations about his personal finances . . . and all that in the first four hours of Election 2007.

The motivation behind Ahern's decision to travel to the Phoenix Park still baffles.

Fianna Fail received no advantage from the calling of the general election. In many constituencies the opposition candidates had their posters up before their Fianna Fail counterparts. It was the first tangible sign that the past masters of political campaigning were a little rusty.

Other signs soon followed. The early swagger from the old team of PJ Mara, Mandy Johnston, Gerry Hickey and a cast of other veterans from 1997 and 2002 seemed misplaced in what always going to be a competitive contest. The atmosphere at the media briefings at the party's Treasury Building election headquarters has been tetchy. Threatening phone calls to RTE and other media outlets elicit less of a response this time around. There's even talk of divisions and different camps in the Treasury Building set-up.

Not once last week did Fianna Fail control the news agenda . . . puzzlement about the election announcement was followed by policy gaffes and the controversy over Ahern's finances. The daily media briefings start with Fine Gael at 9.45am followed by Labour at 10.30am and then Fianna Fail at 11am. Fine Gael and Labour stuck to a similar message when talking about health, crime and education.

"If they couldn't do it in 10 years, how will they do it in 15 years?" Kenny asked.

"Ten years is a very long time, " Rabbitte argued. Fianna Fail has offered no reply to the 'mood for change' argument. The electorate is far too sophisticated to accept scare tactics. Even those who are unconvinced by Kenny and Rabbitte would accept that if they attain power they would be effective government partners.

Own goal number three: the policies Fianna Fail and the PDs have spent the last 12 months warning about the economic ruin that would follow the election of a Fine Gael-led government. Brian Cowen has taken every opportunity to criticise the alternative parties for a lack of costed economic plans. Private Fianna Fail research shows that the party has a strong advantage with its decade-long management of the economy.

Last week the party had a problem when Seamus Brennan gifted Fine Gael and Labour a soft ball. "There's no mention of pensions in Enda Kenny's Contract for a Better Ireland, " Brennan said as he took a pop at his opponents. Fianna Fail, like the other parties, wants to increase the weekly state pension to at least 300 by 2012.

The party's pensions document also contained another headline-grabbing idea. "In government we will develop a new SSIA-type scheme to improve the personal pensions of workers, " the document stated. But when questioned about the proposal, Brennan floundered. The plan was not costed; it was not clear who could participate, although Brennan said it might be introduced in next December's budget.

Fine Gael seized on the mistake. "Fianna Fail is making pension promises that it has no intention of keeping, or else, in an act of desperation, it has just blown a half a billion euro hole in its budgetary plans, " Richard Bruton said.

Twenty-four hours later, Cowen arrived at Treasury Buildings to regain some ground. The SSIA/pension plan was "not a spending commitment". Agreement from the social partners was needed and if a deal could not be done then "we'll leave it", Cowen said. Fianna Fail had conceded what previously had been strong ground for the party.

For the remainder of the campaign, whenever the finance minister questions the economic competency of Fine Gael and Labour, he's going to hear about Fianna Fail's 'promised but not promised' pension plan.

The pension own goal was followed by Fianna Fail's u-turn on stamp duty which featured in the party's manifesto published on Thursday. The party's policy was targeted at first-time buyers but by making concessions on stamp duty Fianna Fail was acknowledging the success of the Fine Gael-led campaign on the issue.

"The entire Fianna Fail stamp duty package was cobbled together at the last minute, " Labour's Joan Burton said. There was talk that Cowen had to be talked into a policy proposal he opposed. And as with its pension plan, Fianna Fail's stampduty proposal left the party on the back foot and gave Fine Gael and Labour plenty of scope to score important political points.

Taoiseach Kenny?

Rarely over the past five years has Enda Kenny convincingly looked like a taoiseach-in-waiting. Research commissioned by his putative coalition partners, the Labour Party, found the Fine Gael leader was "seen as a weakness. He was not liked in general by these respondents nor was he seen as an effective leader."

The opposition bench is the loneliest place in political life and Kenny has worked hard to kick his party back into life after the debacle of the 2002 general election.

Yet, despite his graft, there was still a view, backed up by independent research, that Kenny lacked gravitas. With the start of Election 2007 all that has changed.

"Many people in the past have not taken me seriously as a politician. They will want to start doing so now, " Kenny warned last Tuesday as he launched his Contract for a Better Ireland. For seven successive days last week, Kenny looked like a man ready to cross the threshold into Government Buildings. Assisted by the Fianna Fail implosion, the Fine Gael leader has kept on the run. He's said very little and he's stayed away from sit-down interviews. His campaign is playing to his strengths and masking his weaknesses.

And Fine Gael's strategy is straight out of the Fianna Fail handbook on how to run a successful election campaign, all soundbites and photo opportunities.

This weekend's opinion polls . . . taken before the height of the reporting on Ahern's finances . . . still indicate a contest that could throw up a variety of government options. If Ahern doesn't up his game, then the more people hear Kenny described as the alternative taoiseach the more they will become used to the idea. The prediction could become self-fulfilling.

With two-and-a-half weeks to go, it's far too early to say if the Ahern controversy will determine the outcome. But this weekend Enda Kenny, as he presses the flesh on the canvass trail, certainly looks increasingly like Bertie without Baggage.