Voting Strategy 2009

Dannyboy83

"Never vote for the best candidate, vote for the one who will do the least harm"

Clearly this is not FF.

Who you believe will do the least harm?

thomasj

I hope you are right with regards to fianna fail, I'm in fear that these people with our electoral system will get back in. In order for that not to happen they need to be last preference.

Good piece in todays examiner

http://www.examiner.ie/irishexaminer/pages/story.aspx-qqqg=opinion-qqqm=opinion-qqqa=general-qqqid=84622-qqqx=1.asp

Government in freefall because it made ordinary people suffer first

By Fergus Finlay
IT’S apocalypse now.


Imagine a Dáil with 37 Fianna Fáil TDs — down 40 on where they are today. There is no Fianna Fáil TD to represent a Dublin constituency — Bertie Ahern has lost his seat and so has Finance Minister Brian Lenihan. All over the country, seats have tumbled in a bloodbath of unimaginable proportions.

Of the existing Fianna Fáil members of the cabinet, five have gone and the party is in total disarray. Well-known names bow out of politics right around the country — Dick Roche, Noel O’Flynn, Martin Mansergh, Seán Haughey, Barry Andrews. All of them, and many more, face the ruin of their careers. There has never been anything like it in Irish political history.





It might sound totally outlandish, but according to the TNS MRBI poll published last week, that’s pretty well exactly what would happen if an election were to take place in the near future.

It might even be worse than that – the flight of number one votes from Fianna Fáil has been so total it’s hard to see where even their better known personalities are going to win the transfers that would keep individual seats safe.

And the people, it seems, want that day of reckoning. According to the poll, 62% of the electorate would welcome a change of government now.

The story behind the figures is worse again. Damian Loscher, chief executive of TNS MRBI, when he was analysing the figures, wrote that “the poll results go beyond the natural ebb and flow of the floating vote. Entrenched Fianna Fáil party loyalties are being challenged by a perceived failure to deal with a rapidly deteriorating economic situation. On almost every measure, voters have rejected the Government’s handling of the crisis. Satisfaction with the Government, which has fallen four points to 14%, is at an historic low. Remarkably, a majority of both Fianna Fáil (55%) and Green Party (85%) voters are dissatisfied with the manner in which the country is being managed”.

In the last MRBI poll, the middle classes deserted Fianna Fáil. Now working class voters have deserted them, too. And this is the worst possible news of all. I have written here many times before that middle class voters in Ireland have always been volatile and moody — they’re perfectly likely, in any election, to vote heavily against the people they elected overwhelmingly the previous time.

But in villages and towns all over Ireland for generations now, Fianna Fáil has always been able to command the loyalty of people who work hard for a living. It has been part of their magic, part of the reason they have always been able to absorb punishment and come back from any reverse. But if that loyalty is gone now, there is no end to the trouble they’re in. And there may be no coming back either.

The thing is, there’s a reason why people who have believed in Fianna Fáil all their lives have stopped doing so.

And the reason is to be found in the other figures in the poll — the opposition to the pension levy, for example. There is a fundamental demand in those figures that whatever happens now has to be fair. And by now, there’s a fundamental, rock-hard belief that the Government simply doesn’t get it — they simply don’t understand the need for sacrifice to be shared.

The reaction of ministers to the poll told it all. Some responded by reciting all the mantras — the global crisis, the credit crunch, the competitive situation — all sorts of things beyond our control.

And occasionally there were some rather bizarre admissions — like Minister Willie O’Dea’s assertion that previous governments (his own) had been “bewitched” by things like “light-touch regulation”. (The bewitchers in this case were people Mr O’Dea had been more than happy to share power with, like Michael McDowell and Charlie McCreevy).

And the leader of the Green Party gave an interview on RTÉ’s This Week programme that made it appear as if he was some kind of angry and concerned outsider constantly reminding the Government of its accountability.

None of them, not one, said “we got it wrong”.

Do you think anyone would have been surprised if government ministers, from the Taoiseach down, told us all they had been completely taken by surprise by the collapse of the economy? Suppose they went on to tell us they now realised that some of the policies of the past were wrong, unfair and counter-productive, and that they, in common with the rest of us, had to make a new beginning?

When people insist on fairness, it’s usually interpreted, by some government ministers and some commentators, as “make everyone else suffer except me”.

But that’s not what it means — and the real meaning of fairness is the reason the Government is so out of step with the people.

What the demand for fairness means is — “if I have to suffer, so be it. But the suffering has to be proportionate. Nobody should be asked to carry a bigger burden than they can manage. And above all, no one should be getting away scot-free, not those who can afford to do more, not those who lead us, and especially not those who caused this mess.” That’s why the reaction to the €2 billion cuts has been so negative. People instinctively realise it’s starting at the wrong end.

Why should bus drivers take a hit before bankers do? Why should nurses suffer more than junior ministers? Everyone knows bus drivers, nurses and the rest of us have to suffer. But why first?

If the Government had started at the top, it wouldn’t be looking at political Armageddon now. And starting at the top means changing, fundamentally and forever, the culture of politics.

UNNECESSARY junior ministers, committee chairs and convenors, the whole paraphernalia of politics at its most bloated and ineffective, the government jet, the endless travelling expenses — all that should have been ruthlessly chopped first.

The Taoiseach would have made some enemies in the Houses of the Oireachtas in the process, but he might well have convinced the people he was on their side.

And they needed to move on from that to address the fundamental issue of taxation of higher incomes.

The excuse offered for inaction — that a Commission on Taxation report was due in six months — is the hoariest and most useless in the book.

If the Taoiseach demanded an interim report he would get it in a few days. And anyway, the Government already knows what needs to be done. They just decided to put it off — just as they decided to put off the need for accountability in the sectors that had caused most damage until the scandals could be ignored no longer.

If the Government had started at the top, it mightn’t make them popular. But their actions would have been respected. When you have respect, you can rebuild popularity. But if the MRBI poll is to be believed — and they always are — there has been a huge loss of respect among the people for their elected government. And there’s unlikely to be any way back from that.

Dannyboy83

thomasj wrote: »

I hope you are right with regards to fianna fail, I'm in fear that these people with our electoral system will get back in. In order for that not to happen they need to be last preference.

Good piece in todays examiner

http://www.examiner.ie/irishexaminer/pages/story.aspx-qqqg=opinion-qqqm=opinion-qqqa=general-qqqid=84622-qqqx=1.asp

Very good article, thanks for the link

What the demand for fairness means is — “if I have to suffer, so be it. But the suffering has to be proportionate. Nobody should be asked to carry a bigger burden than they can manage. And above all, no one should be getting away scot-free, not those who can afford to do more, not those who lead us, and especially not those who caused this mess.” That’s why the reaction to the €2 billion cuts has been so negative. People instinctively realise it’s starting at the wrong end.

Why should bus drivers take a hit before bankers do? Why should nurses suffer more than junior ministers? Everyone knows bus drivers, nurses and the rest of us have to suffer. But why first?

If the Government had started at the top, it wouldn’t be looking at political Armageddon now. And starting at the top means changing, fundamentally and forever, the culture of politics.

UNNECESSARY junior ministers, committee chairs and convenors, the whole paraphernalia of politics at its most bloated and ineffective, the government jet, the endless travelling expenses — all that should have been ruthlessly chopped first.

The Taoiseach would have made some enemies in the Houses of the Oireachtas in the process, but he might well have convinced the people he was on their side.

Thank God someone is thinking along the same lines as i am, I feel like I'm going crazy at times.