Carlow Kilkenny General Election 2016

cameramonkey

road_high wrote: »

Whatever makes you happy I suppose, but all that just illustrates is the kind of one manship brand of politics SF stand for.

What is "one manship"?

Cabaal

Incoming onslaught of those bloody election posters, not to mention the cable ties that all of the people running seem to have no problem just leaving around the place afterwards.

Faugheen

On Funchion, while I agree she's not a public speaker in the mould of Gerry Adams, Pearse Doherty or even David Cullinane, I do think we could do worse when it comes to Dail representatives. Bobby Aylward for example, is completely useless. He's been hiding ever since being elected last May. If I had my way, he'd be nowhere near the Dail from this constituency. I think Funchion's getting a bit of a raw deal on here because she does have a very good record at local level and who knows, maybe a term in the Dail will do her a lot of good. Look at Pearse Doherty, a lot of people in Donegal thought the exact same of him and now he's arguably one of the best politicians in the Dail.

People can talk about her failing time after time, this is probably the most conservative constituency in the State. FG/FF make up 4 of the 5 seats nearly every election and it's bloody hard to break that mould.

Before anyone asks, I'm not a Shinnerbot. Ann Phelan is hardly a fantastic public speaker, but it doesn't make her a bad politician. She's another one who gets a raw deal in my opinion.

catbear

regardless of what you think of SF I can think of a lot more useless candidates who got elected in the past. Her tenacity alone will move her up a few notches on people ballots.
I reckon she could possibly do it but it will be a battle of transfers.

cameramonkey

catbear wrote: »

regardless of what you think of SF I can think of a lot more useless candidates who got elected in the past. Her tenacity alone will move her up a few notches on people ballots.
I reckon she could possibly do it but it will be a battle of transfers.

She actually has done pretty well on transfers. I think she will comfortably get a seat. Phelan is in a very difficult position, as I said before her last % was less than 10% at a time when Labour were getting near 20% nationally. She needs to some how move that up to abput 12% from between 7% and 10% that labour are getting in the polls. I can"t see that happening, she has no chance.

RobertKK

Does Kathleen Funchion still live in Waterford?

catbear

RobertKK wrote: »

Does Kathleen Funchion still live in Waterford?

I thought she lived in ballyhale but waterford can have ballyhale.

citykat

RobertKK wrote: »

Does Kathleen Funchion still live in Waterford?

Her address is given as Inistioge on the KK coco site.

citykat

Cabaal wrote: »

Incoming onslaught of those bloody election posters, not to mention the cable ties that all of the people running seem to have no problem just leaving around the place afterwards.

Just passed that McLiam guy putting up posters on the ring road. I was sorely tempted to stop and tell him he's wasting his time and money.

catbear

Who'd vote for me if in the following election I went as an anti-election-poster candidate?

By winning without postering I would have fulfilled my mandate and then I could sit back until the reelection time. This time next year rodney.....

kksaints

citykat wrote: »

Her address is given as Inistioge on the KK coco site.

Didnt know that. SF have 2 councilors who live in Inistioge. Have never seen them around the village interestingly. Neither did they canvas around Inistioge last election time.

RobertKK

kksaints wrote: »

Didnt know that. SF have 2 councilors who live in Inistioge. Have never seen them around the village interestingly. Neither did they canvas around Inistioge last election time.

Maybe SF rent a house in Inistioge and use that for a Kilkenny address?

Faugheen

catbear wrote: »

regardless of what you think of SF I can think of a lot more useless candidates who got elected in the past. Her tenacity alone will move her up a few notches on people ballots.
I reckon she could possibly do it but it will be a battle of transfers.

She seems quite transfer friendly. She'll get most of the left wing transfers and I reckon a lot of FF's transfers will go to her as well.

Cabaal

I see McGuinness has decided to go with the "I'm nothing to do with FF and I'm going to choose to have a poster that looks independent" look once again, unless you're about 4 feet away from it you'd have a hard time knowing he has anything to do with FF. There are zero FF colours on the posters

Didn't get a photo of one, but its almost the exact same as this



Least Alyward has no issue going with the traditional FF colours and from what I've seen of the rest so far they've all chosen their party's tradition colours.

catbear

McGuinness will bolt FF with the first sniff of making up a coalition needing independents. It will interesting to see if voters smelling blood in the water will abandon FF entirely and just throw their lot in with FG.

Their star endorsement at their recent Ard Feis was Ritchie Kavanagh!

road_high

catbear wrote: »

McGuinness will bolt FF with the first sniff of making up a coalition needing independents. It will interesting to see if voters smelling blood in the water will abandon FF entirely and just throw their lot in with FG.

Their star endorsement at their recent Ard Feis was Ritchie Kavanagh!

Hopefully. But bad and all as FF are they are nothing compared to the sinister and abusive nature of SF and their band of fanatics on FB etc.

citykat

RobertKK wrote: »

Maybe SF rent a house in Inistioge and use that for a Kilkenny address?

Maybe it's a safe house?

kksaints

RobertKK wrote: »

Maybe SF rent a house in Inistioge and use that for a Kilkenny address?

Kennedy lives where is address is but Ive never heard anything about Funchion around here.

cameramonkey

road_high wrote: »

Hopefully. But bad and all as FF are they are nothing compared to the sinister and abusive nature of SF and their band of fanatics on FB etc.

Fanatics come in all political organizations and groups. One could say that your aggressive and passionate dislike of SF places you in an other band of fanatics.
I think you will have to get used to the idea of having a SF TD in C/KK.

catbear

I don't know why people should be surprised that sf might scoop up where ff lost out. FF are a spent force, they're not gone but for voters whatever distinction they had from FG is pretty much evaporated. The two grand old party duopoly thats dominated Irish politics for a century is due a change.

road_high

cameramonkey wrote: »

Fanatics come in all political organizations and groups. One could say that your aggressive and passionate dislike of SF places you in an other band of fanatics.
I think you will have to get used to the idea of having a SF TD in C/KK.

No never would never will. It's a place I'm very happy to be and will continue to call SF/IRA/Syriza/"we should be like Greece" out on everything they are, regardless of who gets in or not. As a democrat I'd obviously accept the wishes of the people in that scenario, but that's not to say id agree with their choice or relent on SF or non sensical economic "policies".

madmaggie

Does anyone else find that parties only canvass in certain areas. Around here it's always FG and FF, rarely Labour, and never SF, given that it's rural, mostly farming, and therefore probably more conservative, it's not surprising. I know SF and Labour go to local authority estates. An FG person told me he wouldn't bother, no point.

RobertKK

road_high wrote: »

Hopefully. But bad and all as FF are they are nothing compared to the sinister and abusive nature of SF and their band of fanatics on FB etc.

Shinnerbots.

Plus SF defended their tax cheat, and were involved in the moving around of IRA sex abusers.
Don't know how anyone could vote for them, had a relation who ran for SF in the general election 5 years ago.
He left SF and his mother said, 'he found out some stuff he didn't like.'
The rest of us just though 'he finally got sense'.

RobertKK

madmaggie wrote: »

Does anyone else find that parties only canvass in certain areas. Around here it's always FG and FF, rarely Labour, and never SF, given that it's rural, mostly farming, and therefore probably more conservative, it's not surprising. I know SF and Labour go to local authority estates. An FG person told me he wouldn't bother, no point.

We only get FF and FG. 5 years ago I knew it was bad for Bobby Aylward when Liam turned up and I am in the northern half of Kilkenny.

Currently had canvassers for FG (David Fitzgerald) and the IFA presidential election.

catbear

By those descriptions SF sound like a natural successor for FF. We had a finance minister in Lenehan who said there couldn't be capital flight from Ireland because Ireland was an Island, a previous finance minister didn't have a bank acc and said he won unaccountable funds at the races.....
SF also call themselves the republican party.....
Should I go on?

RobertKK

catbear wrote: »

By those descriptions SF sound like a natural successor for FF. We had a finance minister in Lenehan who said there couldn't be capital flight from Ireland because Ireland was an Island, a previous finance minister didn't have a bank acc and said he won unaccountable funds at the races.....
SF also call themselves the republican party.....
Should I go on?

Where did Brian Lenihan say that?

Bertie's bank account or lack of, didn't mean he was a bad finance minister back in the period before the rainbow government.
No case to show he did anything illegal like the Northern bank robbery.

SF want higher capital gains tax when we have one of the highest CGT already.
SF have it handy in the North with the bailout they get from England every year worth somewhere around £8 billion per year.
They are good at making excuses, not taking responsibility.
Unlike FF with Lenihan who was making the hard decisions before they left office, even though they knew they would pay a heavy price for doing so.
Lenihan did the heavy lifting which made it easier for FG/Lab, and we know now the ECB were making threats to the Irish government about closing the banks due to lack of money if we didn't take on certain debt, something we saw happen in Greece where the banks had to close and only allow a small enough amount of money to be taken out of the banks so the people could survive, before Syriza had to accept it is great to be all talk, but no one is going to give you money for nothing in return.

Remember SF argued they would get money for nothing in return, along with other idiots from the left, when they waved their Syriza flags, which they have gone silent on now.

Squidvicious

I think that many of us seem to be forgetting Carlow in our predictions. Most of the predictions for seats have mentioned Kilkenny based candidates. However, it would be very surprising if no Carlow candidate got elected. Perhaps I've got a black and amber bias, but the Carlow candidates seem a little underwhelming to me. Of the Carlow candidates, Deering is the one with the highest profile and I suspect that he'll pick up a number of votes in Carlow from people who may not be terribly sympathetic to FG but who will view Deering as the only realistic chance of a Carlow TD.

My prediction would be McGuiness, J P Phelan and Deering(in no particular order). Aylward, Funchion and Fitzgerald will battle it out for the last two seats. It's hard to see a 3/2 FG/FF sew-up, so I reckon SF will get one. Fitzgerald to lose out, which is a shame as I think that Fitzgerald is a very strong candidate.

One note of caution about SF, however. As another poster mentioned, SF's support is highest among younger voters. However, the segment also has the lowest turnout at every election. If she gets in, I reckon Funchion will be the last one elected.

road_high

madmaggie wrote: »

Does anyone else find that parties only canvass in certain areas. Around here it's always FG and FF, rarely Labour, and never SF, given that it's rural, mostly farming, and therefore probably more conservative, it's not surprising. I know SF and Labour go to local authority estates. An FG person told me he wouldn't bother, no point.

I know FG who canvass everywhere, even local authority estates- I'm told you'd be surprised how many loyal voters they have, as you'd expect them to be Middle class based. Every vote counts in a democracy...

catbear

RobertKK wrote: »

Where did Brian Lenihan say that?

Dec 1, 2010. Conference call with Citigroup
"We will have no deposit drain due to Ireland being an island".

Edit to add: It's probably not remembered widely as it was just two months after the FF leader of the country went on morning radio sounding halfway between drunk and hungover. And people worry about SF wrecking the economy, oh such short memories.

Not surprising really, his father had fobbed off emigration with "we can't all live on a small Island".

Fianna Fail, making people disappear since the foundation of the state.

RobertKK

catbear wrote: »

Dec 1, 2010. Conference call with Citigroup
"We will have no deposit drain due to Ireland being an island".

Edit to add: It's probably not remembered widely as it was just two months after the FF leader of the country went on morning radio sounding halfway between drunk and hungover. And people worry about SF wrecking the economy, oh such short memories.

Not surprising really, his father had fobbed off emigration with "we can't all live on a small Island".

Fianna Fail, making people disappear since the foundation of the state.

According to NAMA winelake, he was referring to the deposits of Irish households and they were going to put their money into banks elsewhere.
https://namawinelake.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/we-will-have-no-deposit-drain-due-to-%E2%80%9Cireland-being-an-island%E2%80%9D-%E2%80%93-brian-lenihan-now-british-bank-opens-on-our-high-street-to-take-deposits/

Well One can argue he was correct in that case, as deposits did stay in the country.

People have always left Ireland, the Vikings took Irish women off with them, and I was looking at the history of Iceland recently. They were all genetically tested, and a majority of the original women were from Ireland. while 1/5 of the men were.
So we have always being a people who had a lot of people move elsewhere.

So I don't think FF did anything that was different from the history of this land we call Ireland. We have been doing it for at least a 1,000 years, mostly forced or by reason the opportunities are better elsewhere.
As JFK said "This has never been a rich or powerful country, and yet, since earliest times, its influence on the world has been rich and powerful. "
I think emigration has made this country far more powerful than we should be.
We have strong blood ties to many powerful nations, and as I look at it, every four years there is the US presidential elections so the winner can live in the house designed and built by a Kilkenny man.