Biffo revisionism was back in vogue even before the Hot Press happy-valley questioning elevated him to the coolest dude in Fianna Fail's backwoods. He has been the party's heir-apparent so long that his followers had begun to fret that his appetite for power had been crushed by the ennui of hanging around. At 47, he is still fairly young for the mantle of leadership but he is already half a dozen years older than Bertie Ahern was when he took over the party from Albert Reynolds, and the longer Cowen has to wait, the more contenders rise up through the ranks.

Since transferring to Charlie McCreevy's finance desk in Merrion Street five years ago, where, the grapevine has it, civil servants find him a receptive minister, the trademark Cowen brimstone has been glimpsed in seldom spurts. Everyone accepted that Biffo wanted to succeed Bertie as leader but the burgeoning, alarming doubt was about whether he wanted it badly enough. Now, like the Terminator, he's back with all guns blazing.

"Of course I regret being young and foolish, " he replied with unctuous sarcasm to a volley of Spliffo Biffo interrogation at Friday morning's Fianna Fail media conference.

This was 12 hours after Bertie's Lazarus-like performance in the leaders' television debate. It would not have been surprising had the bornagain bellicose Biffo . . . the snarling stand-in for his absent leader for much of the election campaign . . . not appeared the morning after, for his job of holding the fort was done. But there he was, shirt ironed, hair trimmed, tie straight, barking, bantering and belligerent. Not a crumple or a rumple or a slouched scowl on view. The sight of him conjured the tantalising thought that here was the only likely candidate to be the next taoiseach who did not appear in any of the TV leaders' debates.

"At last, the people have seen the leader in him, " gushes a relieved cheerleader colleague. "We've seen it a few times in the parliamentary party but this (election) is the first time we've seen it in public. A few of us were worrying that he was the reluctant prince but I think a decision has been made to raise the performance and change the social life. He can give 10 years to this and go out on a high in his mid-50s. It's worth the price."

What has changed is that the countdown has commenced on Bertie Ahern's withdrawal from the Fianna Fail leadership, whether precipitated by self-determination or outside forces. He has said he will retire at 60 but Dail arithmetic could see him gone before September.

The doomsday scenario for Ahern is that post-election negotiations to form a coalition will be conducted while the resumed Mahon tribunal will be scrutinising his personal finances in pubic hearings.

Should damaging information emerge, it would empower the blushing bride, Pat Rabbitte, to insist that Fianna Fail find itself a new leader before wedding Labour to a party he has spent the past six months spurning.

"He can't choose our leader, " Brian Cowen has fulminated in the face of this prediction.

"There are no circumstances in which such a pre-condition would be accepted."

There is, however, one argument that could change Cowen's perspective. If Fianna Fail itself believed it imperative to have a new leader, he would accede because the fundamental difference between him and Bertie Ahern is that, while the latter is the ultimate man of the people, Cowen is the quintessential party man.

Fianna Fail comes first, always.

Their styles are polar opposites. Bertie has no close party friends and has reached beyond the Fianna Fail organisation to secure his position.

Cowen's intellect has assumed almost mythic status among his disciples inside the party.

He spends so much time schmoozing with backbenchers in the Dail bar that "he nearly has squatter's rights", says an admirer. His merciless attack on Richard Bruton last week was a salve to the wounds reopened by Bertiegate. When he declared that, "This party is going to stand up for itself", at a time when his leader had scarpered to the bunker, the wave of grassroots' relief was palpable.

According to one parliamentary party source: "There was a period of a few hours last autumn, that Friday when McDowell did his wobble, when Cowen's supporters became active, though he wouldn't necessarily have been aware of it."

If Fianna Fail loses the election, it won't be Brian Cowen's fault, or the fault of his main rivals, Micheal Martin and Dermot Ahern. It will be Bertie Ahern's fault, regardless of Biffo's former mentor, Albert Reynolds, wading in with his allegations about his successor's treachery at the nadir of his travails.

With Paddy Power slashing the odds on Cowen being the next taoiseach (one TD admits to having an 8/1 flutter on him), Bertie Ahern is believed to be privately disapproving of his deputy's bombastic, hectoring style of campaigning. Such ingratitude for what great swathes of the grassroots regard as Cowen's campaignsaving interventions will increase resentment for the way their man has been treated.

After his categorical refusal since last September to interfere with stamp duty, Fianna Fail's promise to abolish it for first-time buyers was a public humiliation for the finance minister.

"Cowen deserves better, " argues one of his supporters."

"He's brought in three seats in Laois-Offaly. What's Bertie done in Dublin North Central?

Bertie's personalisation of politics and the cult of the individual candidate has left the party in fragments around the country. Go into any constituency where you've three candidates and you'll see it.

The bottom line . . . for now . . . is that Bertie needs Cowen more than Cowen needs Bertie."