Are we electing policy makers next Friday, or their mouthpieces?

thebaldsoprano

I was digging around the policy sections of a few independents' websites (those who have them) for a different thread and many of them are astoundingly ill articulated and thought out. Here are a couple of examples:

Sean Canney (Galway East):
http://www.seancanney.com/priorities.html

Mike Cubbard (Galway West):
http://www.mikecubbard.net/Issues.html

The obvious thing to do here might be to vote for one of the larger parties, but this begs the question about their candidates hiding behind their party's policies. If independent candidates are happy to put drivel like above on their websites, what does that say about candidates doing a cut-and-paste of the party line onto theirs? Is policy set by party bureaucrats who then send their TDs out to work the parish pumps?

Here's an interesting snippet from Creighton's Glenties speech last Summer which suggests just such a state of affairs:

The objective for most politicians these days is not to break new political ground in the pursuit of some lofty national or public interest. No, the primary aspiration of most politicians is conformity. With blind conformity, comes mediocrity. It is essential, if a politician wishes to succeed – to progress politically – that they conform to the party “line”. So the first question must be, ‘What is the Party line?”.

Well it seems that the ‘Party Line’ is usually a hybrid entity. It’s a bit like a hybrid car, running on two or more power sources. It is made up of positions which emanate firstly from paid party officials, who are generally not party members and may have no commitment to, nor belief in, the values upon which the party is anchored. These positions appear on an ad hoc basis.

They are then ‘stress tested’ on cross sections of normal people called focus groups. The party line is then tailored according to the pronouncements of such focus groups. Generally, experience suggests that focus groups are resolutely in favour of motherhood and apple pie. It is fair to conclude that focus groups generally disapprove of such horrors as humanitarian crises, war, genocide and what is known as fiscal rectitude or tightening the purse strings to save for the rainy day.

Upon completion of this intensive process of policy formulation, the party position is ultimately signed off on by a collection of politicians known as ‘The Parliamentary Party’. However, it is unlikely that they will see the policy in written copy as they cannot be trusted by the beleaguered party handlers not to leak it to the press. Having completed this rigorous and intellectually challenging process of policy formulation, we arrive at what is familiarly known as ‘The Party Line’.

PS, this isn't a plug for Creighton - she kept her Party Line blinkers firmly affixed when FG voted to guarantee Anglo.