Rebranding Fianna Fail? It started on the Late Late Show!

Gay Byrne is an outstanding broadcaster who has through the years effectively been the standard against whom all others are compared, not just within Ireland but among Irish people everywhere. An inner city boy done well. He’s credited with bringing sex to Ireland as his Late Late Show allowed the forum for 60’s Ireland to discuss issues like relationships, womens rights, and sexual liberation against the backdrop of Vatican 2. Gaybo was always seen as being a closet FF supporter as indeed many of those in the entertainment business were in the 60’s. He has a sharp nose for good TV, allowing Terry Keane speak about her affair with Charlie Haughey, something we all knew for years before, Gerry Adams’ first TV interview and who can forget his hour long interview with Annie Murphy the mother of a child fathered by his friend Bishop Eamon Casey. All were key moments in Irish broadcasting. Gay was viscously opposed to the Garret Fitzgerald government who banjaxed the country in view. He forced a climb down of too by using his radio programme and massive audience to great effect. He hasn’t been above mis-judging his audience as I remember from the time he tried to campaign against a decision by Telecom Eireann to rebalance phone charges which subsequently fell flat.

Who better to rebrand Fianna Fail? Fianna Fail is a party that no one trusts. Gay Byrne real skill is that he naturally relaxes his audience and he is someone you can trust. A good president? His predecessor worked in RTE too and like Gay Byrne she was close to a few bishops in her time, an outstanding legal brain who in my view would have been a very good minister if she could have been elected to the Dail. She was an inner city girl who had done well too. So the spec for Fianna Fail president is there in the safe in Mount St. You don’t have to be a card carrying member to be Fianna Fail as any Seanie Fitz and many of his type who were put on state boards by FF in the last 14 years will tell you to be of the tribe.

I welcome his entry to the presidential race. I just wonder though if after retirement and the end of the last decade but one whether his name really means anything to anyone under the age of 35 as he’s spent much of this time in retirement. It’s interesting that the poll for 4FM a semi national radio station aimed at the over 40’s shows Gaybo doing well. But what about those who listen to the youth radio? Another problem he will have will be that Fianna Fail already have another TV celebrity Sean Gallagher in the race and presumably as his campaign tanks on the back of his association with the most toxic party this side of Syria there is a desparate need for Fianna Fail to have something to shout about. That’s what’s in it for Fianna Fail.

The big problem Gay will have to shake off is his support from Fianna Fail and yet his claim that he will still be independent. I always thought that you couldn’t be slightly pregnant. You either are or you’re not. So if he’s not Fianna Fail’s candidate I presume he’ll tell us the names of the other political parties that are supporting him too soon. Otherwise the race will become all about Gay Byrne and not about the presidency and the country. To achieve this would be an outstanding feat on the part of Fianna Fail.

Fianna Fail is a cancer that has the potential to destroy this nation. Most people who suffer cancer believe when they enter remission it’ll never come back again. But it can and when it does it comes back more dangerous and pops up in parts of the body that were previously healthy. Ultimately it eats away at the body ending all hope. Let’s see if there is still any hope for this country.

August is a wicked month

So wrote Edna O’Brien. A truism that David Norris may well soon discover. While the controversy about him gained him popular support, the resignation of key team members may well prove fatal to his campaign. I’ve blogged before that I feel he has the right to stand for president but it would be astounding given the internal disarray in his team if he can now attract the additional support that he needs to cross the line at the end of the race. His own team members who’ve stood by him in the past are now tweeting their resignations and distancing themselves from his campaign.
Polls have shown that Michael D Higgins is more transfer friendly than any other candidate. The shredding of closet Fianna Fail Dragon Sean Gallagher on this week’s Pat Kenny radio show reveal deep dislike for his failure to address his past membership of the FF National Executive and his continuous obfuscation on why he left Fianna Fail amid suspicions that he never left at all. This in time may prove as corrosive to his campaign as Norris’s failure to clarify his past. Gallagher will act as a sweeper for disillusioned FF voters giving them a reason to vote and will transfer well to the official FF candidate.
David Norris may well try to continue his campaign but it’s unlikely that he’ll get 4 county councils to nominate him now and he still needs 5 extra Oireachtas members to help him get his name on the ballot paper in October. About 10 years ago then PD minister Bobby Molloy saw his political career end after it was revealed that he’d made representations to have a man convicted of sexual assault get out early. According to what I’ve heard it is alleged that David Norris used Oireachtas stationary to make a clemency plea to an Israeli judge in respect of a man convicted of the sexual assault of a young boy. There are clear similarities between the 2 cases in my mind. Will he get his name on the ballot paper now? If he succeeds it’s unlikely he will win now. Just as the 1990 Presidential election degenerated into a FF/FG fight about the Lenihan affair and whether Jim Duffy was right to release his tapes, this election may well become about David Norris and not about the office of the presidency.
If David Norris cannot command the support of his election team, how can he command the support of the entire people if he actually won? Where ever President Norris would go the international media would dwell on this controversy. Would that not get in the way of his hope that he would represent another positive image of Ireland? How would press fixation on this matter help improve our international image? ULA and Sinn Fein attempted to get Bobby Ballagh to run however he turned down their advances. It seems that Fianna Fail may well use the presidential election as a way to divert attention from the forthcoming Mahon Report into the man who at one time wanted to be their candidate Bertie Ahern. Brian Crowley for some strange reason feels he has what it takes for this job although he will be an also ran.
Michael D Higgins is well placed to attract support when more people focus on the nominated candidates. I amazed at his energy in covering the country from Donegal last night to Waterford tomorrow but not by his enthusiasm or vigour. He has an outstanding record on issues such as human rights and international development. In time the Norris controversy will be in the past and Higgins will go on to be an outstanding President. The people rarely get elections wrong. That why there has never been an election in the month of August, it is a wicked month!

The race for the race for the Park

In October we will have our first presidential election this century. A lot has changed in Ireland since the last president was elected in 1997. A presidential election is a different type of election. I’ve always regarded it as a statement of how we feel about ourselves in an international context and how we visualise ourselves as a nation. Mary Robinson represented a modern aspiring pluralist state that had something to say on the international stage. Mary McAleese is a more spiritual president who makes us feel comfortable. So what does the future hold for us now? Do we need a president who will re-build our self esteem as a community and if so to what end? Suggestions that the President should perform a role in reviving the economy miss the reality of the last decade that the economic growth didn’t reach everywhere. That suggests a President for a few and not for all. That’s the risk with celebrity TV candidates. How can they connect with the marginalised? I’m out!

Before you can run you’ve got to get a nomination. I’ve always transferred my vote in the past for David Norris in a Séanad elections. He’s an outstanding senator but would he make a president? If he’s nominated I’d certainly transfer to him but can he get nominated? The arrival of other independent candidates like Mary Davis and the Dragon make the process of getting nominations from the county councils harder as each candidate needs 4 and who’s to say that there are enough councils inclined to nominate? What if a political party decided to ask councils to nominate their candidates for them as they have every entitlement to do? Cats, pigeons and setting among come to mind.

That leaves Sinn Fein, Labour, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. I think Sinn Fein will nominate a candidate. Their 17 Oireachtas members plus help from a handful of like minded TD’s could see a candidate, perhaps Gerry Adams, with an eye to the 2016 centenary of the rebellion. Fianna Fail will run a candidate in the hope of a reasonable performance and picking up transfers on later counts. I expect Brian Crowley will be their man. Fine Gael may nominate Mairead McGuiness who will poll well in rural areas and outside Dublin. Which brings me back to Labour. We have 3 very able people declared as contenders; Michael D, Fergus Finlay and Kathleen O’Meara. It’s hard to say no to someone but it’s got to be done. Finlay and O’Meara are outstanding advocates in the area of health and welfare, 2 issues Labour has always been strong on. But I think the bold and imaginative candidate would be Michael D Higgins.

He has so many strings to his bow. Poet, Lecturer, former Arts Minister, philosopher, Galway via the Banner and Limerick and a journey through TG4 included. Potential support for Michael exists not just in these geographical areas but well beyond. He is a strong candidate who has a lot to offer and what’s more you could visualise him having a lot to say about our society and as to how national regeneration could be fairer, better and more sustainable than what went before. He’s done that for years in or out of office. That’s what I want a president to represent and to be. Michael D is the man who ended Section 31 and his appeal will bring in transfers and support beyond the Labour’s core vote. No one can win without that. He’s regarded by everyone as an outstanding orator and motivator.
Mary Robinson was challenged by Noel Browne for the Labour nomination in 1990. When Mary won that nomination we all set about winning the election around the slogan “A President with a Purpose”. That meant something then to me and it still does. It’s time to be bold and have a purpose. That’s why I hope Labour nominates Michael D Higgins as its candidate for the presidency next month.

A day when Dublin and Washington couldn’t be so different

Well it’s the day that Americans have looked forward to more than any other, Barak Obama assumes the presidency and with it a veil can be drawn on the last 8 years of political mediocrity that passed for leadership. Lets be honest, Bush was handed the 2000 election by the failure of the Democrats to win 2 states, Gore’s and Clinton’s. Losing your own turf is unforgivable and yes Bush stole Florida. The debacle about Florida would have been a non-issue if the top 2 Democrats had delivered.
George Bush’s presidency was stumbling into lethargy in 2001. He spent most of the summer on his ranch in Texas and media comment was rife about what his whereabouts and an administration on auto-pilot. It seemed that it looked like another one term Bush in the Whitehouse until that bright sunny September Manhattan morning in 2001. Bush’s behaviour on the day of 9/11 smacks of a rabbit caught in the headlights. Bin Laden rescued Bush’s presidency not once, but twice, on the eve of the 2004 election he issued a tape warning of attacks on the US. This swung waverers behind Bush to deliver another GOP win over a real war hero who’d been softened up by smear, John Kerry.
Tuesday is their chance to wipe the slate clean. How we’d love that chance in this country on the day we mark the 90th anniversary of the first Dail, another day in history when a people started out with optimism for the future. On a day when an Afro American assues the presidency because of a US president named Johnson, we in Ireland mark an event inpsired by his Liverpudlian namesake, Tom Johnson.
5 time zones east of DC things couldn’t be more depressing, one reason why Europeans are enthused by Obama is he gives us a rare commodity in this jurisdiction, namely hope. I don’t believe Obama is any more on the political left than Kerry or Gore, both of whom I believe would have run significantly different administrations to Bush. In politics timing is everything and Obama is the right man at the right time. His tendency to include everyone in his decision making sees Republicans, the Clintons and their allies all on board. If he lets people down then so do they! Smart politics, but I hope for everyone’s sake that he does deliver.

If he wants to see how it pans out when you dither he should ring up the other famous Offaly man Brian Cowen. Exactly a year ago his poll rating was above Bertie Ahern’s now the murmuring among FF supporters is bring Ahern back. It won’t happen. For the modern world’s first republic they may well reflect how far they can go, for us the anniversary of the first Dail may suggest how far we’ve gone indeed whether we’ve moved at all. When you reflect on the aspirations of the Democratic Programme inspired by Cathal O’Shannon and Tom Johnson towards a fairer and equal society one wonders whether their remains in the Mansion House any echoes from the Anglo Irish Bank EGM of last Friday or indeed Batt O’Keeffe will have a Pauline conversion when he reads It shall be the first duty of the government of the Republic to make provision for the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of the children, to secure that no child shall suffer hunger or cold from lack of food, clothing or shelter, but that all shall be provided with the means and facilities requisite for their proper education and training as Citizens of a Free and Gaelic Ireland. The conservatives in Sinn Fein undermined the Democratic Programme 90 years ago, make no mistake the conservatives in Irish society still undermine progress today. I understand as soon as the speeches are over the Back To School allowance is set for the chop at a prolonged cabinet meeting.
Same day 2 nations one looking up and forward another looking down and out!

I call the US presidential election

OK I know that I posted about 6 weeks ago giving 10 reasons why McCain would win, there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since and there’s just one reason why Obama can win. Bill Clinton identified it 16 years ago, It’s the economy stupid. I’m also going against my instinct that says never take any election for granted but something tells me its all over for McCain and that it has been for weeks. So it’s time to say where Obama will win the election not why. The US citizen uses a balanced weighting to elect delegates to an electoral college. For McCain to win he’ll have to turn about 5 big states away from Obama and that’s not now going to happen. I believe the following will support Obama;

California, Florida, New York, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia (first time since JFK) Maryland, DC, Delaware, Rhode Island, Iowa, Washington, Wisconsin, Oregon, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota (Didn’t go GOP even when Reagan ran!), Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Hawaii (surprise surprise!) Florida and my tip North Carolina and even possibly North Dakota. North Dakota hasn’t gone democrat in donkey’s years and if it does it’ll be some achievement, I’m not sure yet so I’ll leave it with McCain for the moment. That gives him a total of 350 Electoral College votes.

The following states I give to McCain; Texas, Missouri, Louisiana, Alabama, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, South Carolina, West Virginia, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska (hockey moms deliver!) Montana, Utah, Arizona, North & South Dakota.

The only state that I think is too close to call is Indiana. Given the Republican tradition and that if racism is to swing it anywhere, Indiana may have enough in the balance to tip McCain’s way. That leaves it as 185 for McCain. A comfortable victory for Barack, significantly beyond what Clinton achieved because Clinton always had the benefit of a strong third party candidate (Perot) to draw votes away from Bush or Dole.

So all it remains for me to do is to save you McCains last speech of the ’08 campaign. At about 3.15AM (Irish Time) he‘ll say the following word’s “It’s been a long campaign for Cindi & me, I want to thank all those people who voted for me, supported me and campaigned for me since Iowa. About 10 minutes ago I rang Barack Obama to congratulate him on his victory, I pledge my loyalty to him and ask you the American people to do likewise”.

The senate will go 58-42 in favour of the Democrat with Ted Stevens in Alaska having time to pick up the hockey mom while out on parole, Congress will actually see the Republicans not doing all that badly and that any breaks going they’ll get. Having said that they won’t go any where near a majority. I think Democrats to win here by 250-185.

The election was the easy bit, it’s now the real work starts. Believe me there’s a lot to do judging by W.