Week in Politics - 15/04

is_that_so

The Week in Politics has the third of the programmes on undecided voters, with Dr. Frank Luntz, tonight @10.35 RTE1

marco murphy

Thanks a lot for reminding me mate.

''I wouldnt trust Sinn Fein as far as i'd throw them!'' LOOOL

ArthurDent

cheers is-that-so

looking forward to watching it - hope I'm still awake!

The_Minister

That programme has no merit in my eyes, people suited to all political parties can be seen in the audience.

InFront

Of course you can, nobody is a political blank canvass, many will have voted before and nobody is 100% undecided on how they will vote next time. An awful lot of people would never vote Sinn Fein or PD, etc. They can still be undecided voters with regard to which mainstream parties they will end up voting for.

By the way, bump, this show is just after starting!:)

MontgomeryClift

I don't think I can take any more of this supposedly 'neutral' commentators, either from the public or from RTÉ's payroll. They're a gang of used car salesmen and snake oil merchants.

pigeonbutler

The public desire for FF/Lab is intriguing. 9-2 with Paddy power by the way It's my own personal favorite too. I'm a FF member but I'd still prefer to have Lab with us in government. They'd give a welcome push in the right directions on a number of issues. My only concern would be that they'd pander to unions too much.

marco murphy

pigeonbutler wrote:

The public desire for FF/Lab is intriguing. 9-2 with Paddy power by the way It's my own personal favorite too. I'm a FF member but I'd still prefer to have Lab with us in government. They'd give a welcome push in the right directions on a number of issues. My only concern would be that they'd pander to unions too much.

And SF? Would they suit you?

GusherING

pigeonbutler wrote:

The public desire for FF/Lab is intriguing. 9-2 with Paddy power by the way It's my own personal favorite too. I'm a FF member but I'd still prefer to have Lab with us in government. They'd give a welcome push in the right directions on a number of issues. My only concern would be that they'd pander to unions too much.

All the opinion polls done by RedC and TNS Mrbi show this to be a most unpopular coalition choice. I think it says a lot about this whole shows biases and flaws, to be honest.The last TNS poll put FF/Lab at 13% of voters most preferred coalition.

Chakar

As a FF member I would prefer to have the current government as opposed to a coalition with Labour and the Greens. Although I don't have many concerns about a FF/Labour government, my major concerns would be that they would increase public spending on benchmarking increases to an unsustainable level. I also don't want to see free health insurance available to all children under the age of sixteen, which in some respects is a badly thought through policy promise. I would also have concerns about the stability of the government. Is Rabbitte going to threaten to collapse the government every time a controversy comes out?

marco murphy

That show does'nt represent the Irish people, only little towns here and there. I believe some communities, towns, villages, can be strongholds for certain parties.

K-9

Poblachtach wrote:

That show does'nt represent the Irish people, only little towns here and there. I believe some communities, towns, villages, can be strongholds for certain parties.

Tonights was very C&W but the two before wheren't. The women on about immigration was cringeful.

FF/Lab do seem to be the preferred choice though of the programmes and flaws in all of the programme, I don't think that would be an unpopular choice after the next election.

flogen

Poblachtach wrote:

That show does'nt represent the Irish people, only little towns here and there. I believe some communities, towns, villages, can be strongholds for certain parties.

Whatever about regional representation, the show is explicitly about the views of the undecided - so while the undecided voters in a region may be found to be leaning the the direction of, say, FF they might only make up a tiny fraction of that area's electorate (although the show suggested undecideds are somewhere between 15 and 20 percent nationally...)

Seanies32 wrote:

Tonights was very C&W but the two before wheren't. The women on about immigration was cringeful.

As was the talk of drinking and driving - such as the bar owner who said people in his area are afraid to drink four pints and drive home (God forbid) - he followed that up by stating that he didn't know if this was or was not over the legal limit.

Chakar

Here's an article from www.ireland.com about tonight.

A Fianna Fáil-Labour coalition is the favoured option of a focus group sample of floating voters surveyed in the northwest, according to research carried out by US polling expert Frank Luntz for RTÉ's The Week In Politics programme.

The programme, which was recorded in Boyle, Co Roscommon, also showed a resentment among voters at missing out on the economic benefits of the Celtic Tiger and the negative effects of restrictive planning laws.

Last night's programme featured a group of 30 voters from counties Roscommon, Mayo, Sligo, Longford and Galway.

As in the previous episode broadcast from Clonmel, Co Tipperary, most of the focus group expressed support for a Fianna Fáil-Labour coalition, despite the fact that Labour leader Pat Rabbitte has ruled out such an option.

There was little if any support expressed for either a Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrat coalition or a Fine Gael-Labour coalition.

After viewing the leaders' speeches from the recent party conferences, the focus group responded most positively to Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams.

They also responded warmly to speeches by Fianna Fáil leader Bertie Ahern and Labour leader Pat Rabbitte. However, the ardfheis speech by Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny was less well received, while Green Party leader Trevor Sargent received the most hostile reaction.

In the field of political advertising, the campaign by the Progressive Democrats - which features party leader Michael McDowell - was judged to be the most effective.

However, there was a negative reaction to advertising by Labour and the Greens. Their campaigns, which feature slogans such as "But, are you happy?" and "Ready for Government", were judged to be boring and lacking impact.

There seems to be wide enough sample from the various counties there.

nesf

Poblachtach wrote:

I believe some communities, towns, villages, can be strongholds for certain parties.

They most definitely can. The area around where I'm from originally was (and still is from what I can tell) very anti-FG (pro-FF and moderately friendly towards Labour). They're referred to as the "party for big farmers" etc. Yet the constituency up until two elections ago gave FG 2 seats out of 3 so there was a large difference in opinion between the large "urban" areas and the more rural areas (me being from one of the rural areas).

Politics is most definitely weirdly skewed in many parts of the country especially with large rural constituencies which are dominated by a few large towns. It tends to result in quite an uneven balance in funding distribution (i.e. where I'm from the "local" TD is around 20 miles away which is reflected in the amount of funding that the area gets). But that's the nature of our political system I think. It makes little political sense to spread investment and funding around while ignoring population (i.e. voter) density. It ensure rural areas remain underdeveloped etc.

redspider

The problem with the programme and Frank Lutz's analysis/methods is that it treats the election as if it was one large national constituency and looks at soundbites of what the leaders are saying.

It isn't like this in realty, its 42 'local' elections, and people wont be voting for Ahern or McDowell or Kenny or Rabitte, etc, although they will have them in the backs of their minds and what type of government they will be aiming for. RTE cant afford 42 focus groups though, and thats what is needed, with about 100 people in each and carefully chosen at that.

FG/Lab have made a pre-election pact, and whilst FF and Lab might have closer policy issues and Ahern/Rabbitte are more likeable, it would be foolish for Lab to consider a coalition with FF and they would be severly punished by the electorate as was Dick Spring back in 1997.

This election will be an interesting one and will be closely fought. One thing was highlighted last night and that is that the Green's should poll well and could broker a government position with either FF or FG/Lab. If I was them, I would do the latter and keep the FF option open for another time. But as the mainstream parties bring in more green policies, the Green Party could find that the next couple of elections will be its strongest, a pattern seen in other countries with a green movement so they need to grab the opportunity.

Poor Enda Kenny, he gets a lot of ad press and doesnt come across very well to people. No-one warmed to his Grandfather lighthouse story, well mainly becaise very few people know anyone that was a lighthouse keeper. I think if I was FG, they should keep Kenny as close as possible to Rabbitte in the campaign.

Election time is here .....

Redspider

brianthebard

Chakar wrote:

As a FF member I would prefer to have the current government as opposed to a coalition with Labour and the Greens. Although I don't have many concerns about a FF/Labour government, my major concerns would be that they would increase public spending on benchmarking increases to an unsustainable level. I also don't want to see free health insurance available to all children under the age of sixteen, which in some respects is a badly thought through policy promise. I would also have concerns about the stability of the government. Is Rabbitte going to threaten to collapse the government every time a controversy comes out?

You don't want to see free health care for children? Why not? Also is this programme on line?

MontgomeryClift

This was basically a Fianna Fáil party political broadcast.

nesf

redspider wrote:

This election will be an interesting one and will be closely fought. One thing was highlighted last night and that is that the Green's should poll well and could broker a government position with either FF or FG/Lab. If I was them, I would do the latter and keep the FF option open for another time. But as the mainstream parties bring in more green policies, the Green Party could find that the next couple of elections will be its strongest, a pattern seen in other countries with a green movement so they need to grab the opportunity.

I think the Greens are in a very strong position for receiving protest/conscience votes but if the other parties start bringing in a lot of green policies over the next term of Government they could be at risk of being seen as "too Green" for most people's tastes. The other factor is that they just don't have a presence in a lot of constituencies in this country (i.e. the more rural ones).

gilroyb

brianthebard wrote:

Also is this programme on line?

http://www.rte.ie/news/weekinpolitics/

The programme is good at getting general indications, but as many above have said, it has a number of flaws, especially in the Irish context. The dial analysis of Bertie's speech in particular was flawed, people said clearly that they were dialling up because they felt as if they had to. Their comments after seemed like they were almost annoyed at having to be supportive of what he was saying. I don't think people were as happy with it in its entirety as they appeared when they were measured against it only on a sentence by sentence basis.

The_Minister

MontgomeryClift wrote:

This was basically a Fianna Fáil party political broadcast.

If anyone came out on top, it was Labour.

nesf

There was one interesting point that I saw in it that confirmed a few things for me. Namely, anyone who wasn't a dyed blue FG hardliner would tell you that in comparison to either Bertie's or Pat Rabbitte's speeches Enda's was poor. The thing was when you look at this focus group (namely a rural focus group) and their reactions to Enda and Micheal McDowell was that they were just broadly negative towards McDowell but they were more dissapointed with Enda's speech. They seemed to expect better from him rather than being negative about him and his party.

I think this highlights an important point about the difference between FG and the PDs in that one has a rural voting block and the other simply doesn't. Regardless of the negative response to Enda you'll see a good few FG candidates elected in the West, but the odds of the PDs developing a strong foodhold there are slim. I think that the panel they had really reinforced this difference between the two parties.

Jonny Arson

LOLLOLZ that programme was the funniest piece of TV all year. So utterly horrific that it was utterly fantastic! 32 dopes stuffed into a room talking politics with a guy influencing their every word is such a recipe for classy TV:) Great to see RTE using our licence fee wisely as usual....... :rolleyes:

No one can possibly take anything of that programme anyway seriously. Luntz has absoultely no credit. He seemed to have a right grudge against Enda Kenny.... must have not liked Kenny ripping off his ''contract'' creation

Everything about the programme was wrong. I could write a thesis about it. I'm not going to bother. Whoever commisioned that garbage and wasted an hour of my life should be fired.

is_that_so

Jonny Arson wrote:

Everything about the programme was wrong. I could write a thesis about it. I'm not going to bother. Whoever commisioned that garbage and wasted an hour of my life should be fired.

Agreed with most of your post about the group they selected. I learnt that I have very little in common with some people in the North West and that I might have been watching different speeches to them.

The main interest I found was in listening to the punditry.

Still you should reached for the dial on your own TV , marked OFF.

Chakar

Jonny Arson wrote:

No one can possibly take anything of that programme anyway seriously. Luntz has absoultely no credit. He seemed to have a right grudge against Enda Kenny.... must have not liked Kenny ripping off his ''contract'' creation

I'd say so without him getting paid for it. I read the article in the Independent with his 'analysis' of the parties and he rather pointedly refers to the 'contract' saying that Kenny packaged it wrong by focusing on the 'contract' rather than the promises in this 'contract'. If anything that's a strong hint to Kenny that he should have employed him to craft the message Kenny wanted to get across.

Chakar

If you want to watch all three of Frank Luntz's programmes you can do so here.

E92

I think that the programme was very flawed, and I think that it is unrepresentative of how the Irish People view the whole situation in the sense that elections are not based on the person per party principle like in Luntzs home country. It is very obvious to me that Luntz has a grudge against Fine Gael because they copied his idea with a contract, which apparntly he came up with during the US presidential campaign for the Republican party, a party as we know that has its war on terror on going in Iraq. So what? I thought that people would have reacted much more positively to it, as a Fine Gael supporter naturally I was dissappointed, but I was very happy when after Luntz told them that FG 'stole' the contract they didnt care anyway. The Irish electorate are quite special when it comes to voting I think, they may criticise the government of the day and yet still vote for them anyway, or they may despise a particular party or leader but vote for that party anyway because there is a well known candidate/ strong personality candidate standing in their constituency. In short, I think it makes not a whole lot of difference that Enda Kenny is seen as unconvincing(and I accept that he is not the best at it) and Pat Rabbitte comes across very well, because look at any time they do those party leader satisfaction ratings, Enda Kenny gets the lowest(though this has improved consistantly) and though I have never met him I'm told he is supposed to be very likeable and as good as Bertie is on a one to one basis, which should help get rid of some of these credability issues that some people has with Enda(I should mention that unsurprisingly I think he is a fantastic leader and I have great time for him, but I know well that its not me he needs to convince its those who are undecided/may vote FG etc that need to be convinced, and I think that he is in general) , yet the party he is leading has candidates in Cork North Central and Waterford topping the poll by miles if the opinion polls are to be believed (and the only poll that matters is the one on the day this years election is)

I though what Terry Prone said on Monday in the Irish Examiner was very interesting about it http://www.examiner.ie/irishexaminer/pages/story.aspx-qqqg=opinion-qqqm=opinion-qqqa=general-qqqid=30463-qqqx=1.asp