2011 Presidential Election

[passinginterest]

I left that open in fairness. Reminder to self to use more commas.

Higgins probably still favourite for my vote at the moment. Still a seriously uninspiring election race so far.

[Dodge]

Still a seriously uninspiring election race so far.

HAs there been an inspiring presidential race yet?

Maybe Robinson as she was a bit of a ground breaker (female, not alligned to FF/FG) but apart from that...

[Cuyahoga]

Matin Mc Guinness is expected to be ratified as SF's candidate tonight. I reckon he will now be favourite. He will do much better than his party's other suggested candidates Mary Lou and Gildernew. It makes for a more interesting race.

[Eminence Grise]

McGuinness hasn't a hope. Looks to me like the swansong of the old guard of SF.

In the unlikely case he does win, I'm starting a petition to have the Aras renamed the Viceregal Lodge!

[John83]

I'm also pretty dubious about McGuinness' chances. There are quite a lot of people who won't vote for a SF candidate under any circumstances. However well he does with first preferences, I can't see him getting the transfers to win the election.

[culloty82]

Dev Óg planning to launch a new party - reminds me of the old joke that if five Irishmen landed on a desert island, they'd soon split into three parties.

[dahamsta]

Lads, ye don't seriously think either McGuinness OR Sinn Fein want him to win, do ye? It's marketing. Personally I think it's actually a fab bit of marketing, made all the better since he's stated that he'll only draw the average working wage if he wins. We don't have a labour party any more, so Sinn Fein is the new labour. How can ye not see it...!

Course he'll be kicking himself if he does, but like Adams and his seat in the Dail, he'll just get on with it.

[Spudulika]

Agreed with Dahamsta - welcome back, I guess it took something fun to infuse you with new interest - it's clever from SF to run such a name as it means they will secure more MOR votes when this current coalition collapses and Labour go the way of FF. Labour have shamefully caved in to FG (just as much as FG have backtracked on their pre-election promises) and deserve to get a belt next time up. If SF can continue to evolve, and people with brains ask questions, then they could be the legit 3rd force in Ireland. Martin Mc is an outsider for the Presidency, my only worry is that he might just open the door for Gay Mitchell.

[culloty82]

Two Millward Brown polls tonight - one presidential, the other a party tracker:

Presidential Election:

Higgins 32%
Norris 19%
Davis 18%
Mitchell 18%
Gallagher 17%

Party Support:

Fine Gael 42% (-2)
Labour 20% (+1)
ULA/Ind 17% (+4)
Sinn Féin 11% (-1)
Fianna Fáil 10% (-6)

[mypost]

Labour have shamefully caved in to FG (just as much as FG have backtracked on their pre-election promises) and deserve to get a belt next time up. If SF can continue to evolve, and people with brains ask questions, then they could be the legit 3rd force in Ireland. Martin Mc is an outsider for the Presidency, my only worry is that he might just open the door for Gay Mitchell.

The government is 75+37. Labour have to row back on the odd promise or two.

I don't know really how much further SF can go tbh. Some people will never vote for them, they'll never win a bill-signer election, and they'll never be in government. So where next?

[Eminence Grise]

If O'Cuiv leads a walk-out from FF, what odds a rump-FF SF merger? It would close the circle on 1926 and give me a double reason not to vote for them...

I think Wee Martin is a miscalculation for SF. He's too tied to the Troubles to pick up moderate/protest votes here and if he polls alongside Davis and Gallagher, it could damage SF's post-election momentum. Where, apart from SF, is he likely to pickup votes? It also shows that, Pearse Doherty aside, they have nobody else here with even as remote a chance as McGuinness.

The Millward Brown poll is entirely meaningless with Norris in it. And I don't buy Mitchell at 18 when the party is at 42. That's too much of a discrepancy.

[BonnieShels]

There's a definite real life discrepancy between the Mitchell vote and the FG vote.

I'll have to declare interest at this point. I'd crawl to the north pole in the nip before voting for Mitchell for president. I've even been known to vote for the Arch-St-st-st-stickie in Europeans before Mitchell.

I still think there's more political credibility in SF than consider such as a bizarre thing as a merger with ffailures.

Anyway, mickey d is getting my vote.

[mypost]

If O'Cuiv leads a walk-out from FF, what odds a rump-FF SF merger?

Long. Very long.

It's hard for FF to pick a less popular leader than Cowen, but O'Cuiv fits the bill perfectly.

[Spudulika]

The government is 75+37. Labour have to row back on the odd promise or two.

I don't know really how much further SF can go tbh. Some people will never vote for them, they'll never win a bill-signer election, and they'll never be in government. So where next?

I know you're right in every sense about Labour having to give a little, though I am still disappointed in them for going into goverment at all. I know that politics is all about power, though if they'd stayed away, I am certain FF-FG would be ruining the country now and Labour would have come in (probably not to do much more than hand over the last off our state assets to the european/world elite and their irish collaborators) in 18 months with 80 seats. I can dream anyway.

SF will need a completely new Irish meeja to do anything, and that won't happen. Too many owe their position (and advertising) to the same scum who sold out the country so they're not going to let SF get any sort of fair treatment. If FG were still being called blueshirts in the media during the last election, 50 years on, SF will need 100 years to be rehabilitated.

I wonder, other can enlighten me with more knowledge, if the talking heads who proposed a new party before the last election had had the courage of their convictions, would they have done anything? I'm certain at least 1-2 seats would have come their way, and then they could have built on it. Can a new party (not rump FF-nua) start up and grow in Ireland?

[Cuyahoga]

McGuinness hasn't a hope. Looks to me like the swansong of the old guard of SF.

In the unlikely case he does win, I'm starting a petition to have the Aras renamed the Viceregal Lodge!

Next Irish President

Thursday 27th October 2011, 08:00

Next Irish President Hide
Michael D.Higgins 5/6 Gay Mitchell 5/2 Martin McGuinness 9/2 David Norris 8/1 Mary Davis 10/1 Sean Gallagher 16/1 Labhras O Murchu The bookies dont agree with you that he dosent have a hope. He is a likeable figure he would get votes from people that that never voted SF before. ( odds from Paddy Power )

[Eminence Grise]

And the bookies are never wrong? Funny that they have Norris, with no nomination, at better odds than Mary Davis who has a slew of councils and a lot of work done over the summer. Mind you, they're probablly more accurate than some of the polling, which increasingly gives clairvoyancy a good name!

Every new contender will get a boost. There's a novelty attached to having a SF candidate, and no FF candidate. But that will pass once the media start asking Wee Martin about the guns, and people start to question whether they want a former IRA-man taking the salute at the GPO at Easter 2016. Don't underestimate the capacity of the media to tear stripes off somebody they dislike. He'll pick up the regular SF vote, and disaffected FF votes (an increasingly tiny prospect in the overall picture) along the border and in a few hotspots in the old Munster Republic.

Wee Martin isn't about to win the presidency: he's there to twist the knife in the festering wound that is FF, and make SF the third biggest party. That's what I was getting at when I wondered a few posts back if O'Cuiv does lead a walk-out and forms a new party (with a scattering of "slebs" never associated with FF) would the remainder of FF sunder, with some (the Labhras O'Murchu refugees from reality brigade) carrying on to oblivion, and the rest (younger, ambitious, no pensions worth a damn) chowing down on 90 years of schism and rejoining SF. There are a lot of self-interested FF councillors watching Tricky Mickey with horror who would jump ship to SF to preserve their seats if SF can put in a decent showing. That's all SF need. It's a pity they had nobody from the state that actually elects the presidency and had to parachute him, like Grizzly in the general election, hence my swansong comment. (Actually, what does this decision say about Grizzly's future in SF?)

[Macy]

But that will pass once the media start asking Wee Martin about the guns, and people start to question whether they want a former IRA-man taking the salute at the GPO at Easter 2016. Don't underestimate the capacity of the media to tear stripes off somebody they dislike. He'll pick up the regular SF vote, and disaffected FF votes (an increasingly tiny prospect in the overall picture) along the border and in a few hotspots in the old Munster Republic.

People might also reflect that it'd be hypocritical to vote against McGuinness on the basis of not wanting IRA reps on the stage at 1916 commemorations.

I don't think he'll win, but I think the media/ INM might misread the public mood. Especially as he'll clearly be the only one who'll be anti bail out. And it's not like FF/FG or even Labour don't have their own armed struggle histories.

[Eminence Grise]

But no FG or Labour Oireachtas member (off the top of my head at any rate) is a reformed commander of a terrorist organisation. The IRA of the Troubles was very different to the IRA of 1916, which was intended as a standing army for the republic. It's hardly hypocritical to differentiate between the two - one whose actions led to the creation of the state and the other whose actions threatened its security.

I'm unsure about the media picking up on the public mood: there's a part of me that thinks they've done a pretty good job dictating it in recent times. Being against the bail-out is all well and good for posturing, but what would he do when presented with a bill to sell off a stake in the ESB, VHI and Coillte because the troika have dictated it? Refuse? Grounds for impeachment. Supreme Court test? Delaying tactic, if the Council of State even allowed it to get that far. Sign, and be damned. Miriam or Pat or Vinnie probably can't wait to ask him.

Following the media coverage, it's getting dispiriting that voters know so little about the restrictions on the role of the president. We could have an all-powerful amalgam of Christ, Luke Skywalker and Attilla the Hun as president - and he'd still be obliged to consult with Albert, Bertie and Biffo on important matters. If voters accepted that behind all the posturing and preening and grand statements they were simply voting for a champion kisser of babies the race might be more realistic. The Eminence Grise Unscientific Research Co. Inc. asks rhetorically: of the current candidates, who would you let within ten yards of the (real or hypothetical) fruit of your loins?

[Spudulika]

Of all the candidates (in the race) my vote would go for Mary Davis. Michael D, no, not a chance. I disagree with a number of the aggressive Israeli governmental policies, though I don't want our President caught up in his own ego and saying stupid things, it'd be David Norris but with a culchie accent. Gallagher, he's ahead of Gay Mitchell. Martin Mc, well, he's shown he can work in government with people he plotted against and who plotted against him, plus he's intelligent and decent. David Norris I sincerely hope does not believe his own hype and puts aside the goading from the meeja to try get in the race - he's being set up for a fall and he has to know it.

Davis 1, Martin Mc 2.

[Macy]

But no FG or Labour Oireachtas member (off the top of my head at any rate) is a reformed commander of a terrorist organisation. The IRA of the Troubles was very different to the IRA of 1916, which was intended as a standing army for the republic. It's hardly hypocritical to differentiate between the two - one whose actions led to the creation of the state and the other whose actions threatened its security.

Half the Labour leadership come from an Officials background! The point is, that terrorists/ freedom fighters/ defenders (delete as applicable) come in from the cold at some point. Same point as before the last two general elections - if they're good enough for Government in the North, no reason we should get on our high horse about it.

Following the media coverage, it's getting dispiriting that voters know so little about the restrictions on the role of the president. We could have an all-powerful amalgam of Christ, Luke Skywalker and Attilla the Hun as president - and he'd still be obliged to consult with Albert, Bertie and Biffo on important matters. If voters accepted that behind all the posturing and preening and grand statements they were simply voting for a champion kisser of babies the race might be more realistic. The Eminence Grise Unscientific Research Co. Inc. asks rhetorically: of the current candidates, who would you let within ten yards of the (real or hypothetical) fruit of your loins?

Yes, and no. I'd rather someone with some background in politics, as sometimes the occasion does dictate. I'd rather disband the office than have it a purely personality driven contest, and votes going because someone did good work for charidy. Any election can send an important message to the powers that be (here and abroad) about what direction the citizens want to go. If it turns into a defacto referendum on the bail out, that's much better than it being about some bloke or bird being a nice person.