Anthony McIntyre ☠ The reports coming back to the Heather Humphreys campaign managers must be ominous.
With Catherine Connolly riding high in the polls, Paddy Power is reported to be paying out on single bets placed on her to be the next President of Ireland. For the bookie, it very much looks as if the die is cast and is only going to fall one way.
Fianna Fail leader and Taoiseach, Michael Martin, anticipating a bruising encounter at tonight's meeting of the parliamentary party, has refrained from urging his members to vote for Heather Humphries. One loser was bad enough for his standing within the Dullards of Destiny without risking what remains of his credibility by placing it on Humphreys. The message transmitting from the Martin camp is that he no longer considers the presidential contest a two horse race but one between a steeplechaser and a donkey.
Heather Humphreys remained less the great establishment hope than its only hope after Jim Gavin's Aras bid imploded over alleged financial malfeasance which he failed to address persuasively. A fall back candidate forced upon Fine Gael, once a much more formidable Mairead McGuinness pulled out of the race on health grounds, Humphreys was probably considered dull but worthy in circumstances where the party was not spoilt for choice. While her campaign never moved beyond the slowgress stage, she was able to navigate a reasonably steady course in waters that had not yet turned choppy: no great challenge to any politician. But as Warren Buffet famously observed it is really when the tide goes out that we can see who is naked. As every election campaign moves into the business end of its lifespan, more than the mundane and mediocre is needed to make it across the line.
The conservative lobby that put whatever wind it could generate into the Humphreys campaign has been struggling first to find any mud on Catherine Connolly and then to make it stick. Her backers protest too much, ending up emptying the contents of their slops bucket over the Connolly head only to find that their mud would have fitted into a thimble.
Trying to leverage advantage from Connolly's views on German military spending and her willingness to employ a former republican prisoner in her Dail office, has delivered little in terms of mileage. Now a wit might quip, even if for the hell of it, that the intense focus on Connolly's comments on an increased German arms budget has led to tunnel vision within the Humphreys camp. Even when the Fine Gael presidential hopeful visited part of Ireland her media team made the gaffe of posting a picture of the German Reichstag rather than Belfast City Hall. A Day in Belfast suddenly segued into a disaster in Belfast. Dripping in mockery one comment online stated: ‘To FG a president for the Four Provinces means Leinster, Munster, Connacht and East Germany apparently!’
Such was the embarrassment that the video has since been pulled and replaced once the Fine Gael Satnav located Belfast. A silly mistake perhaps on the part of some overenthusiastic intern but it becomes another disc in the kaleidoscope that helps create the image that when the North was consumed by violent political conflict, the citizens there might as well have lived in Germany for all Fine Gael cared. A President for all of Ireland has to know Belfast is not Berlin.
Heather Humphreys remained less the great establishment hope than its only hope after Jim Gavin's Aras bid imploded over alleged financial malfeasance which he failed to address persuasively. A fall back candidate forced upon Fine Gael, once a much more formidable Mairead McGuinness pulled out of the race on health grounds, Humphreys was probably considered dull but worthy in circumstances where the party was not spoilt for choice. While her campaign never moved beyond the slowgress stage, she was able to navigate a reasonably steady course in waters that had not yet turned choppy: no great challenge to any politician. But as Warren Buffet famously observed it is really when the tide goes out that we can see who is naked. As every election campaign moves into the business end of its lifespan, more than the mundane and mediocre is needed to make it across the line.
The conservative lobby that put whatever wind it could generate into the Humphreys campaign has been struggling first to find any mud on Catherine Connolly and then to make it stick. Her backers protest too much, ending up emptying the contents of their slops bucket over the Connolly head only to find that their mud would have fitted into a thimble.
Trying to leverage advantage from Connolly's views on German military spending and her willingness to employ a former republican prisoner in her Dail office, has delivered little in terms of mileage. Now a wit might quip, even if for the hell of it, that the intense focus on Connolly's comments on an increased German arms budget has led to tunnel vision within the Humphreys camp. Even when the Fine Gael presidential hopeful visited part of Ireland her media team made the gaffe of posting a picture of the German Reichstag rather than Belfast City Hall. A Day in Belfast suddenly segued into a disaster in Belfast. Dripping in mockery one comment online stated: ‘To FG a president for the Four Provinces means Leinster, Munster, Connacht and East Germany apparently!’
Such was the embarrassment that the video has since been pulled and replaced once the Fine Gael Satnav located Belfast. A silly mistake perhaps on the part of some overenthusiastic intern but it becomes another disc in the kaleidoscope that helps create the image that when the North was consumed by violent political conflict, the citizens there might as well have lived in Germany for all Fine Gael cared. A President for all of Ireland has to know Belfast is not Berlin.
In little over two weeks time, hopefully, the greeting to resonate throughout Ireland shall be Comhghairdeas Catherine, not Heil Heather.
 |
| ⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre. |
Should have writ "Münster"!
ReplyDelete