Tag: opinion poll

And they say that negative campaigns don’t work…..

by dsmooney, posted in Aras11, Fine Gael, Government, Irish Labour Party, Politics, Sinn Féin

The presidential campaign is barely a week old and already we have candidates producing P60s showing how much they have earned over the years. This was in response to dark propaganda about earnings and directorships.

And they say that negative campaigns don’t work. If we are at this stage just one week into the race then it cannot be long until the demands come that this candidate or that one produces their birth, baptismal or parents’ marriage certs.

We should not really be that surprised. Academic/college politics is said to be so much more vicious than real politics because the stakes are so low. It could just as easily be said about Irish Presidential elections.

It is not that the office is unimportant; it is that the powers are limited and the office appears to fade into the background once the campaign is over.

The fact that Mary McAleese has been an excellent President somehow adds to the notion that it doesn’t matter an awful lot as to who succeeds her.

As none of the candidates have so far convinced us that they are cut from the same cloth as her, the debate is slowly turning to which of them will be the least worst.

The office of President is so tightly defined and closely managed that almost no occupant could manage to go truly rogue. So, while many people, myself included, have severe misgivings about the possibility of McGuinness occupying the office, the truth is that his being President would not change anything. Martin McGuinness being President will not make a significant difference to anyone’s daily life – apart from his own.

The reality of the past decade is that Sinn Féin has been moving steadily to the centre in the North. No sooner do they move into office but they very quickly adopt the policies and strategies of those who were there before them. Sinn Féin in Government in the North is not a thorn in anyone’s side, least of all the DUP’s. They may head up anti hospital closure committees in the 26 counties, but in the North they merrily implement the cuts imposed byLondon.

So, while his election may not herald the end of civilisation as we know it, it could send out a very embarrassing signal at this crucial time.

Almost any of the other candidates: Michael D Higgins, Mary Davis, Sean Gallagher or Gay Mitchell could each fulfil the role in their own individual ways without causing us any embarrassment or sparking an international crisis.

This least-worst approach appeared to be the underlying theme to last night’s TV3 debate.  Unlike past encounters, there was some spark to it. The cross talk between the candidates did not yield much and at times became insufferably twee. The competition to be the most concerned by the trauma of suicide bordered on distasteful.

It was the questioning and serial grilling by the moderator that managed to reveal something more about each of the candidates. As someone said on Twitter last night, it was not that any one candidate emerged as the winner: it was more that some managed to emerge less damaged and scarred.

David Norris and Dana were not among them. Though a veteran of past campaigns, Dana seemed the least prepared and most unfocused. While Norris’s continuing obfuscation in the face of very specific questions from Browne on who it was inIsraelwho had advised him not to publish the remaining letters was telling.

David’s protestations that the public will decide this issue ring particularly hollow when he refuses to give them access to the full facts by releasing the outstanding letters. This issue is not going away and the longer it continues the worse he will get for him.

His media adviser is a big admirer of Tony Blair’s spin doctor, Alastair Campbell, He should remind his client of Campbell’s famous rule that if you allowed a bad news story to dominate the headlines for more than four days, you are in trouble.

David has had more than four days of such headlines and the only end in sight is his own. And, to think, we still have three weeks more of this to go.

Why Fianna Fáil is right not to contest Aras11

by dsmooney, posted in Politics

The reality that Fianna Fail is no longer the huge force in Irish politics that it once was is gradually dawning on some.

Former big beasts in the forest are finding that they now do not strike the same sense of awe and fear they once did when the party commanded support levels of around 40%.

While watching the process of them coming to terms with this loss of influence and authority in public is neither edifying nor appealing – it is better it happens quickly.

The reality of the last election is that Fianna Fail no longer has a God given right to presume it can be in power. It has received what a colleague of mine in the North described as “the mother and father of a political punishment beating”.

It is a beating from which the party can recover, but that process will be long and arduous. The process of renewal the party must undergo must itself commence with the facing of some facts.

The first among these is that the traditional way of doing political business will no longer work. That means, in this instance, that the old assumption that almost any candidate Fianna Fail selects from its own ranks will automatically be a front runner no longer applies. Things have changed utterly for everyone in the party, not just those at the top.

It applies even to huge voter getters like Brian Crowley. For him to think that he could personally withstand this swing against the party is to miss what happened last February.

There is no great evidence to show that the public anger has diminished significantly. Any candidate facing the electorate in the foreseeable future, and that includes this October, with Fianna Fail on their posters will incur the wrath of a still smarting public – no matter how small they make the logo.

Contrary to the views of others, the party leadership was right, and is right, to wait until now to decide its strategy. The suggestion that this decision should – or could – have been made last June or July is nonsense. This is a decision that required some time and space for calm consideration. It is a decision that needed to be made when the full impact and scale of what happened last February had been digested.

Having the Gay Byrne flirtation in public before taking this decision was an error, though it hard to see how anyone could have thought the Byrne option could ever have been considered just in private.

It sent the wrong message to the party membership. Martin’s countrywide tour of the constituencies was reconnecting the leadership with the members – the Byrne episode has dented that reconnection: though not damaged it irreparably, despite the rantings of a few impetuous people on Facebook.

But consider what a hero Micheal Martin would have appeared if he had convinced Byrne to run. Consider too that some of those who were most critical of Martin for courting the popular light entertainer had – a few weeks earlier – been urging him to allow four or five of his Oireachtas colleagues to sign the nomination papers of another, equally well regarded entertainment figure; David Norris.

There is a world of difference between accepting your current situation and allowing it to curb your ambitions. The fact that Fianna Fail may not directly contest this October’s Presidential election does not undermine the party’s hopes to recover the public trust it has lost.

If anything, not running a traditional style candidate is part of the process of letting former supporters know that it is taking the hard message they sent last February to heart.

This is not merely a question of the party saving a few hundred thousand Euros by not running a candidate – it is about Fianna Fail doing what it traditionally did best: facing up to harsh realities and addressing them. It is this which offers Fianna Fáil a way to renewal and recovery, not the fielding of an Áras 2011 candidate.