Presidential Election 2018

Doesn't seem to be doing his poll numbers any good. He came off very badly in the Pat Kenny debate attacking Higgins, who dealt with him rather well. I see Ni Riada is trying a dig at Higgins as well today, over this "jet to Belfast" thing. But none of it really sticks.

Edit: On Casey, he's going on about Higgins' dogs again today, both on the cost of grooming and on their breed. The first point is completely immaterial - there's no way Higgins would be so stupid as to put that expense on the taxpayer, and he can spend his salary anyway he pleases - and the second is the weirdest bit of faux-nationalism I have seen in a while

Interesting to see Higgins and Ni Riada take time in the prime time debate to speak to each other as Gaelige long to make the point that they were the only 2 people on the stage who understood what each other were saying.

I have a feeling that may have been working on that one on the training ground.

My big takeaway from this is that the constitution should be amended to abolish the right of councils to nominate candidates to the presidency.

They have nominated 4 utter clowns. There are ones with more sense than Freeman eating grass and the other 3 are obviously making a fly on the wall tv show they can flog after it is all said and done.

You would never get a Dail to go for that though, since most of them came from councils.

Its a strange way to nominate someone for head of state all the same, and its only worked as an avenue since 97. At least the people get the final say.

Even Gallagher's messages to children are annoying: https://www.rte.ie/news/presidential...en-of-ireland/

Remember when we had to vote on the ridiculous idea of abolishing the senate? It should have been the presidency.

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Originally Posted by backstothewall

My big takeaway from this is that the constitution should be amended to abolish the right of councils to nominate candidates to the presidency..

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If push came to shove, there's a good chance the electorate would vote to retain the status quo since the alternative would be to leave nominations in the gift of the Oireachtas, and that would make a stitch-up between the main parties the norm.

I suspect we'll see a tightening up of the process, after Bunty-whatever-her-real-name is made complete idiots out of Dublin City Council. There's a good chance that prospective candidates will be more soundly vetted, and that might include a vote of the council on each applicant's merits before invitations to speak are issued.

At the end of the day don't forget that while they nominated four political pygmies, they did do their job in not nominating Gemma O'Doherty.

Bunty was probably the second best prospective candidate after MDH.

I would say candidates applying through the council route should also be nominated with a sufficient quorum of voting councilors, since there was so many abstentions at times. I'd also love for there to be a set date for them all to vote, rather than the strung-out clownshow this years turned into, but I'm not sure how practical that would be to implement.

Regards the Presidency, I'd love to see it beefed up with a proper veto power (where a sufficiently high legislative majority could over-rule it) and a reduced term length. It's the only position we have elected by the entirety of the electorate after all, it should have powers that reflects that. You can count the amount of notable Presidential incidents that involve actual powers on one hand.

Both exit polls have Higgins winning at a canter, with Casey a distant second and the rest in single digits. The Blasphemy ref will pass easily.

Casey's late surge will generate a lot of talk, proof that notoriety is better than blandness in these kind of races. I note from social media that a lot of the anti-SSM/Love Both crowd rowed in behind him, though I don't even know if Casey identifies with those causes, he just annoyed left-leaning types. A real basket of deplorables situation.

The less than brilliant turnout also shows that talk of voter engagement being boosted after the last few referendums might be a tad overblown.

Miggeldy will be going to bed tonight knowing he is on course to be declared the most popular politician in the history of the state tomorrow and will possibly be the first Irish man or woman in history to receive over a million votes.

Casey will be a story for a day or 2. He goes nowhere in a STV election and he's smart enough to know it. I'd speculate that he wouldn't even have managed 3nd place if there had been multiple hypothetical seats available by the time eliminations and MDHs massive surplus had come into play.

Casey will be chip wrappers by Wednesday. MDH goes into the history books.

few commentators on twitter saying Casey's surge to 20% is a sign of the underlying racism in the country, and his demonising of travellers was the dogwhistle the right needed needed to hear* to get them out to vote

*I know you can't hear dogwhistles, but you know what I mean

I'd be a little worried. Casey was incoherent and disorganized, if he hit the message a week earlier and made it a 2 horse race before the main debates it could have been closer.

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Originally Posted by tetsujin1979

few commentators on twitter saying Casey's surge to 20% is a sign of the underlying racism in the country, and his demonising of travellers was the dogwhistle the right needed needed to hear* to get them out to vote

*I know you can't hear dogwhistles, but you know what I mean

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I think that's harsh. Part of the issue was how PC things have become lately; you can't criticise anyone without being labelled racist. Casey made an entirely fair point on travellers - there is no reason for them to have special status in Ireland - but instead of opening a debate on the matter, you had Varadkar simply telling him to shut up and Freeman coming out demanding an apology (the go-to "argument" of the current decade) and saying that travellers' problems were society's fault, which is utterly daft. It was to an extent of a corollary point he made about Ireland being over-the-top in terms of welfare (a point a recent Government report kind of agrees with), although that didn't get as much traction on either side of the fence.

Here's the original comments btw, for clarity. I think they're entirely valid. The case for the defence is that they've been fighting for rights to education (primarily) for decades; Casey said they have the right to free education (and don't take it up; is it 2% go through to Leaving Cert?). The argument was made that they were racially discriminated because entire villages shut down when there was a wedding or a funeral on; I don't know how accurate that is, but it doesn't explore why that might be the case (Casey touches on it in his reply, but I think dismisses the real reason - fist-fights and arrests - as too obvious).

Yet rather than address these points, Varadkar tells him to shut up, and Freeman says they're all society's fault. I think that's sparked a good chunk of the vote.

It's part of a broader issue there days where people park their kids in a car/police station for a day to assert their right to a free house, or get another few months to make a payment on a mortgage they haven't touched in years, or where people can rack up double- and treble-figure criminal conviction numbers and be given another chance because sure haven't they a young child - and any criticism of this is simply dismissed as some kind of bigotry or, as you've suggested, racism or a play to the masses, instead of a genuine point for debate.

I think there's a growing frustration about all that, so a protest vote was always likely for whoever said it first. Not saying that's the sole reason for the relatively high Casey vote, but I think it is one which you haven't mentioned.

(Disclaimer - I voted for Michael D, and I agree the travellers comments meant that the Casey campaign became one topic, while other stuff - his daft comments about Michael D's dogs - were overlooked)

His comments were valid? Nonsense. It's not PC to label racists as racist.

Have you got any sort of argument to go along with that?

I've given a detailed one on my side. Dismissing that as "nonsense" is exactly why Casey got so many votes

You've given no argument why his comments were valid. None. If you can tell me why Travellers don't deserve recognition of thier ethnicity then I'll be happy to debate it. Everything else follows on from that.

Why should they get special treatment? Casey made the point that there's more Polish people in Ireland than travellers, but the Polish aren't an ethnic group. They instead have adjusted to our culture, were treated equally, and as a result integrated.

So why shouldn't travellers also be treated equally? Why should we discriminate in favour of them? Having a special status for travellers discourages any sort of societal integration. It entrenches "traveller culture", which has negative issues such as domestic abuse, animal abuse, crime, event policing, undereducation, environmental damage, tax evasion - all at the expense, financially and otherwise, or greater society. By Varadkar telling Casey to "shut up", by Freeman saying that these issues are somehow our fault, by you saying that it's somehow racist to even bring this up, then we create a groupthink environment where these issues simply can't be discussed. That's the frustration that has led to Casey going from 2% to 21% in a fortnight.

I've already covered the counter-arguments put on the interview - the fighting for educational rights (which they have), the "racism" around villages shutting down at weddings/funerals (obvious issues there), and there was really little enough else to be honest.

Why should we enshrine a culture which is a drain on society in many ways? The argument could be put that I'm only focussing on the negatives - but of course I am. You could say the points are generalisations - but of course they are. That's kind of the point. There are nice people in the traveller community - but it's the negatives that have to be addressed, as is always the case. And the negatives are more prominent than in other population groups. And unless we can talk about the negatives without being shut down with no counter-argument - as you've tried to do - then we can never improve things.

Comparing Travellers to the Polish isn't relevant. We are discussing ethnicity not nationality. Your whole first paragraph is irrelevant. Casey attacking thier ethnicity is attacking the bad and good travellers. Thier ethnicity recognises that they have been victims of racism aind discrimination and is a vital stepping stone to address this within society. It has been fought over for decades by numerous groups from within the travelling community , from human rights organisations from within Ireland and from rights organisations internationally. It is the basis for all Casey's comments. For you to dismiss them as a drain on society is quite frankly astonishing. The factors you cite are prevalent in all downtrodden communities all over the world be they settled or traveller alike.

Casey then doubled down by focusing on a specific set of travellers that turned down social housing while ignoring the rest of the population that turn down social housing. That in itself is discrimination and it's not PC for people to see through that rubbish.

There is no doubt that there is a huge anti social and behavioral problem within the travelling community, massive, no one is or should be denying that.

To reiterate. Peter Casey doesn't understand why Travellers were given ethnic minority. He has no idea why it was done and has absolutely no understanding of what it means.

"Sure they are not Romany or whatever"

"My Pakistani taxi driver couldn't understand the question"