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Given Act's desperate need for a morale-booster of any kind, Rodney Hide's reconciliation with Sir Roger Douglas looks like a masterstroke.
But in the long run it could turn out to be a huge miscalculation if fundamental differences between the pair over how Act deals with other parties have not been resolved.
For now, though, the return to the inner sanctum of one of Act's founding fathers and prime ideological guru is the best news Act has had since Hide's 2005 victory in Epsom meant it kept a toehold in Parliament.
It is good news because it is news. While Hide's extra-curricular activities - ballroom dancing, fitness regimes and weight loss - have created plenty of column centimetres, Act's profile as a party has sunk to morbidly low levels.
Coming on board for election year, Sir Roger will change that. His speech to Act's annual conference in Auckland today is guaranteed to generate media coverage, more than likely overshadowing the contributions from Hide and other speakers.
Sir Roger is the news this weekend. He is a conviction politician. His absolute and unshakeable confidence that his way is the right way combined with his use of simple language make him a superb salesman of ideas.
He will galvanise the conference both in speech and presence. Having consistently registered at 1 per cent or less in the Herald-DigiPoll survey for well over a year, Act has its fingers crossed that Sir Roger's return to the front-line is the circuit-breaker.
The reconciliation between Hide and Sir Roger ends a long-running rift caused by the latter's frustration with Hide's previous persona as a headline-chasing populist.
As Hide began to emerge as the obvious successor to Richard Prebble as leader, Sir Roger began making thinly disguised attacks on Hide, culminating in an overt campaign against him when Prebble stood down in 2004.
"Leopards don't change their spots," Sir Roger warned party members at the time, saying past behaviour was the best guide to future actions and effective leaders did not "fiddle around with inconsequential matters or issues". But the leopard's spots did change.
Act's stretched resources and his post-Dancing with the Stars epiphany saw Hide re-evaluate his role as an MP. Out went the perk-busting, scandal-chasing lone operator. In came the serious, co-operative and policy-focused parliamentarian.
After Sir Roger's 70th birthday party in December, Hide invited him to take part in a party strategy session. Sir Roger accepted. He is already figuring prominently in Act's publicity and may yet be persuaded to go on to the party's list.
But the return of the architect of Labour's 1980s economic reforms is not without risks.
You only need to look at the subject matter of Sir Roger's speech today to understand why. He will be outlining a "vision without limits" that will allow New Zealand to socially and economically overtake Australia by 2020.
It is typical Sir Roger. He sets an extremely ambitious goal. He then unveils the sweeping policy changes which he says are necessary to reach the desired outcome.
The trouble with Sir Roger's grand visions is that despite the comforting sales pitch, they either require a leap of faith, involve hugely disruptive overhauls of current practices or mean pain for someone - sometimes all three.
The result is that while many party members continue to be inspired by Sir Roger, the history of Act's parliamentary wing has been the slow retreat from his grand plans to more workable policies.
At heart, Sir Roger is a first-past-the-post politician. His ideas for superannuation or delivery of health care are all-or-nothing schemes not amenable to the tinkering or compromises of MMP politics. And their market orientation sounds too much like wholesale privatisation to have anything more than very narrow electoral appeal.
More fundamentally, Sir Roger personified the negative image of Act as an uncaring, inflexible party on the right.
Much of Hide's leadership has been devoted to softening that image. Pushing Sir Roger to the fore sends a rather large mixed message. Plus it looks like Act is going Back to the Future for its salvation.
The other worry is Sir Roger's tendency to think aloud. That was evident when Hide tried to free Act from its fixed position to the right of National on the political spectrum. Hide tried to build ties with other parties so Act was no longer merely a "tactical appendage" to National. With the minority Government finding increasing difficulty in securing a majority on legislation, Hide last year seized the chance to demonstrate Act does have relevance by floating the possibility of supporting Labour-instigated legislation.
But Sir Roger slammed the talks with Labour as a joke, saying one of the measures in question ran completely counter to Act's principles. This happened only eight months ago. However, circumstances now make it less likely Hide and Sir Roger will clash over the party's strategic direction.
For one thing, Hide's flirting with Labour has not made a jot of difference to the polls. It was always a hopeless cause. When everything is boiled down, Act is a party of the right. Act can really only deal with National - and not just for ideological reasons. Hide would be run out of Epsom if he was to prop up a fourth-term Labour Government.
His best ploy is to stress that because he will hold Epsom - National is not going to put up a huge fight - a vote for Act no longer risks being a wasted vote.
He must send a strong signal to centre-right voters that they can safely vote for Act because he will not betray them by doing a deal with Labour instead of National. He is starting to talk about the difficulty of working with Labour "in its current composition". But the message needs to be more explicit.
That way Act can start winning back voters it lost to National but who now have problems with John Key pushing that party centrewards. As Hide will tell the conference, Key's leadership of National offers huge opportunities for Act. Clearly Sir Roger also sees a prospective National Government as Act's best chance to make a difference. If Act has two or three MPs, Hide could conceivably be a minister by year's end, though not necessarily a Cabinet one.
Well, that's the theory. The trouble is Act has only done well when National has been doing badly. Now that National is doing well, Act may simply have become an irrelevance. Not helping is the fact that Act has been off most voters' radar this parliamentary term. When it comes to getting back on, showcasing Sir Roger is a start. But only a start.
