After a five week a campaign which was in fact longer given the hype and activity in the run up to the official launch, tomorrow the people that ultimately matter, the voters, shall determine what they made of it all. They were lied to right to the very end. The lies were so outlandish that the voters must have seen through all of it. They now must decide who they trust most to perform the job as President.
Clearly those that lie most are those who least merit the vote. But ought does not is make. Maybe people don’t care, feeling that honesty in public life is something for the fairies. How on that basis the public will ever be able to make a judgement leading to the betterment of society rather than to its detriment is not explained. The means used to gain power will certainly be deployed to maintain it. It will be lied to by those in office every bit as much as they were lied to by them when seeking office.
The campaign really came to life with the announcement by Sinn Fein that it would field Martin McGuinness. In media terms it was what the IRA used to call a spectacular; something explosive lobbed into the Park for the purposes of disturbing the peace. The North’s Deputy First Minister came in proclaiming to be Ghandi and leaves looking more like Harold Shipman.
Yet, despite taking the lion’s share of the searching questioning he still managed to stay ahead in opinion polls of others including the ostensible candidate from the main governing party, Fianna Gael. Gay Mitchell throughout was tetchy, on more than one occasion accusing interviewers of bias or not allowing him as much time as the others to make his point. His point should have been that his party Fine Gael shafted him after he had the temerity to put himself forward as a candidate against the leadership's preferred choice. Its revenge was to back the candidate of its partner in government and not its own man.
Dana, a right wing Derry Catholic, was victim of a dirty tricks campaign. Problem is she launched it herself. Few were interested in her family disputes until she broadcast to the nation that they were of major significance. As a sympathy gathering measure it was a colossal failure. What little popularity she had sank like a stone. Ireland needs a president not an ayatollah. Her chances of seeing the inside of the Aras are as dead as John Charles McQuaid.
David Norris, a pre campaign favourite, despite managing to claw his way back into the race made progress at a snail’s pace. There seems to be too great a fear in the public mind that something terrible would come out during the presidency that would be seriously embarrassing for the country. Witty, gregarious, ebullient and gay, the times we live in have stacked the odds against him.
Mary Davis simply failed to rise above the din caused by some of her six rivals. Her voice was simply not heard. At one time considered the most likely of the candidates to pick up second preferences, at last glance the only evidence of any claim to strength on her behalf lay in her propping the six others up as she languished on the bottom.
Sean Gallagher, Slick Seanie as he is being referred to in today’s media, is something else, a ‘cute hoor’ by the look of things. The dark horse that raced up on the inside lane to lead the field was determined that the voters rather than the horse should be blinkered. Fianna Fail is dead, Long Live Fianna Fail! Having cleared all the previous fences he got trapped, even entrapped, at Dodgy Diesel and it is far from clear if he has extricated himself sufficiently to canter home.
Michael D Higgins, the most presidential of them all, has proved steady throughout. Intelligent, tolerant, left leaning, in his person is a potential Irish President who can actually speak Irish, That failed to prevent the crowd rushing out to shout ‘give us Barabbas’ as they cast their gaze to the crook at his side. Today he is the bookmaker’s favourite. Tomorrow he might be the voters’ favourite. Friday he might be President.
Whatever the result, we have had seven weeks of excitement, almost certain to be followed by seven years of ennui.
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Good piece AM, for such a comparatively unimportant post it has been an interesting contest, mainly thanks to the entrance of M McG.
ReplyDeleteSlick Seanie is so part of the problem, I just hope the majority of the electorate can see that.
Higgins seems to be the best bet for the reasons you have given and unlike most of them he does actually seem to care for people as individual human beings.
Whilst Ireland is far from unique in this, but what a small and tepid pond we fish in when we are looking to elect our politicians.
Voted on way to skool, they asked for I.D. must be my youthful complexion....and mini stature???
ReplyDeleteVoted Mickeybhoy 'D' ...........1
rainbow love today love today
Noris ..... ...........2
Sister magdaline Dana ...........3
finito.. the rest can swing!!
manners count for something. Marty and baldy cute hoor and FG are not worthy. I did avail of McGuninness' cafe in Derry on my way home, best value to be had. Really great food and cheap.
good piece mackers, totally agree with the assessment, ur becoming a genious to be sure.
My deepest apologies to any Cunts out there for comparing you to the likes of Martin McGuinness, I’m so sorry.
ReplyDeleteHello everyone, my original post didn’t appear because of a fuck up on behalf of Google, I think. My post was, get rid of the post of “president” of the free state (the money could go towards better causes). MMcG said that if the families of people (like Jean McConville and/or Patrick Kelly) deemed their death to be murder, then he would accept that. I am saying that, if the family of the soldier shot dead by Francis Hughes, said that it was murder, would MMcG accept that as well? (I have no doubt that he would) if he did accept that, then he’s criminalising Francis Hughes. By definition, “murder” is the act of a criminal, not someone who is trying to free their country from foreign occupation. Also, (and AM can correct me on this) what if the people who owned the Balmoral Furniture Stores asked him did he accept that the people that tried to bomb it were “terrorists” and “criminals”, thereby saying that Bobby and his comrades were criminals?! Thatcher must be having a wet dream, because what she tried to do (and couldn’t do, was to call the struggle a criminal enterprise), and now we have so-called “Republicans” agreeing with her. Of course in my eyes MMcG and his ilk are not Republicans, they are constitutional unionists. What a Cunt (I mean McGuinness). If anyone has seen my post now, it was a follow on from this.
ReplyDeleteMcGuinness said the experience was phenomenal. Wonder what he was comparing it to, serving in the butchers maybe?
ReplyDeleteFionnuala,
ReplyDeleteHe was probably talking about the way that he and Gerry fed “phenomenal” lies to people on the ground, and, that most of them fell for it! I’m not going to curse on this post. (Although I feel like it!).
Phenomenal experience for Martin proud he finished in 3rd place given the hilarious bunch he triumphed over leaves nothing to boast about. After all he did manage to beat poor Dana but at least she won the Euro-vision song lark, good on ye Martin.
ReplyDeleteI doubt the jovial niceties’ will be so pleasant behind the secret walls of SF as this was a major blow to the party their think tank will need to revise their invasion plans as unlike in the north where power was traded they didn’t have to earn the vote.
In Martins case he is merely the apprentice with delusions of being the boss. The numbers are dismal and would have been even lower if there had have been a seasoned opposition.