During the 2007 general election campaign, Enda Kenny had an out-of-body experience. For three weeks, he transmogrified into Bertie Ahern. In the previous campaign, Ahern had perfected a form of electioneering that involved maximum exposure for minimum engagement. He moved through crowds at great speed, shaking as many hands as possible, and never stopping long enough to have to engage with a voter.

This light-touch electioneering was perfect for the illusory Celtic Tiger times. Awkward questions were shovelled aside by a laying on of hands. Fine Gael spotted how easily it was to get away with this approach. Anybody trailing after Kenny in 2007 couldn't help noticing the copycat.

This time around, another leader is attempting to emulate the man who was the greatest vote-getter of the modern era.

Eamon Gilmore hasn't had to electioneer as a leader yet, but there are shades of the former Taoiseach about him. Bertie perfected the role of Everyman at a time when opportunities for social mobility were better than ever before. Here was an ordinary guy who gave the impression that he got to the top through little more than hard work, and yet he never forgot where he came from. To boot, he had no interest in money (bar the odd packet of £70,000 in cash lying in his safe).

Voters related to the persona he projected. From a 20:20 vantage, and considering what tumbled out in the planning tribunal, many would now say that this persona was a construct, custom-made to harvest votes.

Gilmore has mined a comparable seam. Right now, everybody is angry, and Gilmore is expert at being angry, feeling the pain of anger, projecting anger. At leaders' questions in the Dáil, he is the resident angry man. People can relate to his anger, just as they once related to Bertie. It could be that Gilmore is genuinely angry all the time, but if so, he must be exhausted by now.

He also might be accused of retreating into a construct. How else do you explain his attempt to distance himself from his days in Official Sinn Féin in the 1970s? He joined the party as a student, implying his politics at the time was radical, which is a relief. Only a young fogey or a bore would have anything to do with establishment parties as a student. Yet, instead of celebrating that he was once a young man, Gilmore runs from his past in case a few curmudgeonly floating votes might baulk at his youthful association with a branch of Sinn Féin.

His Bertie-itis doesn't end there. Our beloved former leader always had something for everybody in the audience. There was no ideology or vision that preferred the interests of one societal or economic group over another. Everyone was well taken care of when there was money to burn. The centre ground was coveted in the drive to achieve and retain power. And get the votes he did, particularly the all-important transfers which had been the bugbear of previous leaders of his party.

Gilmore doesn't have anything to dispense except his word. At a time when the country is broke, his giving is all about reassuring everybody that there will be no pain. He favours the massive reduction in the budget deficit which will cost over €10bn in the next four years, but he infers that nobody except the "rich" will really be affected. At a time when the country is in danger of losing its sovereignty, Gilmore's focus appears to be on maximising his voter-appeal at any cost.

Last week, he told the Evening Herald that his party will "not hit middle-income earners". Existing tax rates will not be increased. There will be no cuts in social-welfare rates or child benefit. Instead, he will hunt down the billions by increasing the income tax rate for the 5% of the workforce which earns in excess of €100,000.

Taxing the rich is socially just, but anybody who believes that alone will deal with our woes should be dispatched to the dunce's corner.

Out of the other side of his mouth, he declared: "I think we're going to have to go through a couple of very difficult years. I don't think you can pin it on individual things."

Difficult for who exactly? His specifics suggest that 95% of the population will sail through the forthcoming times of austerity. In reality, Gilmore's economics has the ring of a missive direct from Planet Bertie.

The most damning revelation is that he does not advocate a property tax. A large element of the current mess is attributable to the destruction of the tax base by Ahern and his gang. Yet the Labour leader will not sanction even the most basic reform of taxes on property – which is advocated by left- and right-wing opinion – because it would require persuading the public, rather than pandering to populist sentiment.

His failure to even have a stab at proper leadership is particularly depressing, because with the country crying out for somebody, he is the only candidate in town.

Brian Cowen is a beaten docket, his party discredited. The polls say that Kenny isn't up to the job. Gilmore alone is achieving any purchase with the public.

As things stand, he will sail into power. Once there, he will do as the Liberal Democrats did in the UK, and engage in swingeing cutbacks. Taking such a route will lower politics further into the mire and heighten disillusion. But will Gilmore care? By then, he will have achieved power, and his current focus is far more concerned with a strategy for power rather than any vision for a fair society.

He still has time to give us the true picture, to lay out his vision, to say how exactly he will be different from what has gone before. But he'd want to get his skates on or he is in danger of going down in history as just another Bertie.