Presidential hopefuls resort to sandwich circuit to secure spot

Date Published: {J}

It was Charles J Haughey and his old cohort PJ Mara who introduced the wider world to the chicken supper circuit back in the dark days of the Seventies – but for our Presidential hopefuls this week, substitute the chicken with Council tea and sandwiches. And perhaps the expectation of a dollop of sympathy as well for good measure.

Fittingly for an election that is turning out to have All Kinds of Everything going on, Dana was on the local authority trail to secure her place this week, as David Norris attempted to make his re-entry, leaving only marginally less debris in his wake than that satellite which came down over the Pacific.

There has been something terribly unseemly about the whole process that candidates have to abide by to get onto the ballot paper for the Áras race.

This system was originally intended as a way of stopping every one trick pony in the country joining the race and turning the whole thing into a farce – no need to worry about that now, because they’ve found another way to accomplish that.

We’ve been subjected to one hopeful after another trekking in and out of Leinster House, pleading with every uncommitted Oireachtas member to cast a nomination in their direction, before traipsing off around the country to do the same at any local authority meeting they can find.

The canvass of City and County Councils is one thing, but it’s the ‘in again, out again’ TDs and Senators who take the biscuit, flip-flopping between support, opposition and abstention as the mood takes them.

The weekend’s events sort of summed it all up; Shane Ross agreed to nominate Norris and in the same breath said he was fully behind Michael D; Mattie McGrath asked a couple of hundred of his supporters what to do before making up his mind, while down the road, Michael Lowry – fresh from his disappointment over the demise of Twomile Las Vegas – waited in the long grass to see if he was needed for national service.

By Monday, the whole thing had degenerated into a sort of political version of Challenge Anneka as Dana and David Norris headed off in pursuit of any Council that hadn’t already backed Sean Gallagher or Mary Davis.

Meanwhile, if reports are to believed, Fine Gael was wondering how far it could go with negative messaging before the electorate rumbled that this was a ‘dog in the manger’ approach to the Arás – they know they’re not going to win it but they’re dammed if they’ll let Martin McGuinness get his feet under the table.

And while they’re at it, the biggest party in the state is looking at ways to neuter Mary Davis after her strong showing in recent opinion polls by suggesting she might have been favoured by Fianna Fáil with a place on several quangos.

The targeting of Davis was interesting, given her performance in that Sunday Business Post/Red C poll which showed her on 13 per cent of first preferences – the same as Gay Mitchell – and she is emerging as the dark horse … probably as much down to the fact that she’s done nothing wrong as anything else.

Senator Norris, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to need any help from Fine Gael because he appears to have an unerring ability to shoot himself in the foot.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.