Party loyalty/local issues

brianthebard

Its been mentioned a good bit in a lot of threads and with reason-most people will be in one of two camps, voting either along party lines or for someone who will get local issues heard at Dail level. I'd like to add a poll, but I'll leave that one up to the mods, since I know they aren't allowed here. Personally I vote along party lines. I had a look to see which party best suits my ideals and vote accordingly. So with a show of hands please which way is more important when you go to vote?

Chakar

Party lines are more important to me than the candidate in question. However I would still give my first preference to a FF candidate that, I thought was the best candidate. I would continue my preferences for other FF candidates.

cast_iron

Chakar wrote:

Fianna Fáil.

Wonderful. How about reading the post and answering the question asked as opposed to being posting tripe.

Personally, I would probably vote due to a combination of both, depending if there was a candidate running on local issues close to what I wanted.

Edit: The above quote was his entire post before he edited it.

InFront

Party loyalty.

I like our local PD TD (Liz O Donnell) as a local representative but I think there's a reasonable chance that she could lose her seat. Will I vote for her because she's good for the area? Not a chance. Her party are one of failure and hypocrisy; if a good local TD must be sacrificed for the sake of good national Government, then so be it.

A good local representative is not hard to come by. They all know how elections work, they know that to stay in their job they must keep their constituents happy. It's a basic effort.
The real value of a politician is really only demonstrated by the collective party effort, that is where the value of elected government lies.

brianthebard

InFront wrote:

A good local representative is not hard to come by. They all know how elections work, they know that to stay in their job they must keep their constituents happy. It's a basic effort.

That's one of the main reasons why I wouldn't vote for a specifically local issues type candidate, because all candidates should know that they must represent local issues at some level.

athtrasna

My first 2-3 preferences will be along Party/Coalition lines - after that I vote to keep out.

If that means voting for the party I dislike in order to keep out another person/party I dislike more then I will.

Dandesav

I will vote down the ticket 1-6 for my coalition choice. Within that I'll vote for whichever candidates I like best. I will also vote strategically- FG foolishly put up 3 candidates in my constituency (Dublin South) and Labour foolishly put up 2. To give them the best chance of winning 3 seats (which is the max they can realistically hope for), I will vote FG 1,2, Labour 3, then back to FG.

I would never vote on local issues- is it really a TD's fault that the street light is broken or that you got clamped last week? TDs are there to legislate, not to plant trees in front of your house!

spanner

I am giving my first preference to a guy I really think is a twat but I want FG back in government so I will vote for him as he is the guy standing in my area and will vote the rest FG/Labour/Greens.

As said by another poster FG are terrible at vote management they really want to look and FF and SF who really do some job on it. I Heard SF dropped mock voting cards into all the houses in West belfast to keep the DUP out and it worked.

Our man in Havana

spanner wrote:

I am giving my first preference to a guy I really think is a twat but I want FG back in government so I will vote for him as he is the guy standing in my area and will vote the rest FG/Labour/Greens.

Same here in Laois/Offaly. It will be necessary to vote for complete twats in order to keep FF out of power. A necessary evil I think.

InFront

Dandesav wrote:

I will also vote strategically- FG foolishly put up 3 candidates in my constituency (Dublin South) and Labour foolishly put up 2.

I agree it was pointless, but I don't think it will harm FG's ability to get two seats.
It will be Mitchell, and then O Leary or Alan Shatter.
Probably the latter, as Shatter can capitalize more on those who might have voted for Liz O Donnell (she's going down:D )

I think even one Labour candidate wouldn't have done it so it's irrelevant. The support just isn't there, two candidates is fairly bizarre.

JerkyBoy

I was going to vote along party lines (I have no party allegiances, just a desire to see a change of Government) but now that it looks like FF are screwed anyway and need an overall majority I will probably give my #1 vote for local issues and then vote along anti-Government party lines.

Catherine Murphy Independent TD will get my number 1 vote as she has been excellent in helping out new home owners in Kildare. Afer that I will give Labour #2, FG #3, and Green #4.

Bertie makes me sick with his squirming. Regardless of what he says when he gives his next "explanation" of his dodgy finances...his fanances ARE dodgy and he came up through the ranks of a crowd of proven crooks so I have little faith that he'll be completely upfront.
Pity the rest of this country could care less about ethics in politics.
We get the Government we deserve until we actually decide to deserve better.

Mick86

brianthebard wrote:

Its been mentioned a good bit in a lot of threads and with reason-most people will be in one of two camps, voting either along party lines or for someone who will get local issues heard at Dail level. I'd like to add a poll, but I'll leave that one up to the mods, since I know they aren't allowed here. Personally I vote along party lines. I had a look to see which party best suits my ideals and vote accordingly. So with a show of hands please which way is more important when you go to vote?

I won't be voting anyone into the national parliament on local issues. But I don't have any particular party loyalty either. My aim would be to vote Fianna Fáil out of office and keep the Shinners out of the Dáil.

Dandesav

InFront wrote:

I agree it was pointless, but I don't think it will harm FG's ability to get two seats.
It will be Mitchell, and then O Leary or Alan Shatter.
Probably the latter, as Shatter can capitalize more on those who might have voted for Liz O Donnell (she's going down:D )

I think even one Labour candidate wouldn't have done it so it's irrelevant. The support just isn't there, two candidates is fairly bizarre.

I agree that FG have a chance of getting two seats- I think Mitchell is fairly safe because she is high profile, and maybe Shatter can get in on his excellent reputation from the past (with a little help from William Shatner and the X-Factor ), but as you say O'Donnell is going to suffer over all this PD kerfuffle and that will certaintly help!

I wouldn't rule-out Labour- Eithne Fitzgerald got in in 1992 with 3 quotas, but putting up 2 candidates will surely split the vote this time. Tight transfers should help too.

InFront

Yeah I can't remember the old Labour TD but apparently she was more of a character candidate if you know what I mean, in that it wasn't that there was a Labour/ socialist support here as much as support for her individually.

I think that Labour might have won a seat here if they had ran someone like Ivana Bacik, who is an established entity in her own right outside of the Labour context, and would have been someone that constituents could be more likely feel comfortable with.

Any idea which one of the 2 Labour candidates would be more likely to spring a surprise as it stands?

csk

Dandesav wrote:

I would never vote on local issues- is it really a TD's fault that the street light is broken or that you got clamped last week? TDs are there to legislate, not to plant trees in front of your house!

I always hear this trotted out. Why can't TDs do both as in legislate and look after local issues? Is it really that much to ask, they do get paid enough anyway.

Now I know someone will say but that's what local councillors are for but I still see no reason why a good TD won't be able to do both, local and National.

murphaph

csk wrote:

I always hear this trotted out. Why can't TDs do both as in legislate and look after local issues? Is it really that much to ask, they do get paid enough anyway.

Now I know someone will say but that's what local councillors are for but I still see no reason why a good TD won't be able to do both, local and National.

....because often the local interest will conflict with the national interest. Decentralisation being a prime example.

Dandesav

InFront wrote:

Any idea which one of the 2 Labour candidates would be more likely to spring a surprise as it stands?

The surprise would be for Alex White to win. This is his first election and he is a complete unknown. However, he apparently did very well on Questions and Answers a few weeks ago. I have also heard several people remark that he seems very different from other polititians- he doesn't seem to take himself too seriously and looks genuinely honest. If you look at his poster, he looks so casual- I'd say that would work in his favour- there's something really normal about him!
He's causing a bit of a stir, I wouldn't rule him out...