Presidential Election 2025

It is not that simple. Labour has always been dependent on transfers. When those transfers disappeared, 30 out of 37 seats disappeared in 2016. What you seem to have missed is that the old 2.5 party model that made the half-party Labour important for government started to break down in 2013 around the time of the Water Tax protests. It also affected the positions of FF and FG as the dominant parties. This led to the Big Three party model with a much diminished Labour being irrelevant after 2016. The problem with the Big Three model is that no two parties would have enough seats to form a majority. FF supported FG from 2016 to 2020 with the C&S agreement. Some of the FG votes that gave FG 76 seats in 2011 were borrowed FF votes. The 2020 GE was a very abnormal GE with people voting who would not ordinarily have voted. Labour's resurrection (as expected by aging champagne socialists everywhere) never happened. Despite some thinking that 2024 was good for Labour, it wasn't. Labour now has competition from the SocDems and the SocDems are consistently higher than Labour in the opinion polls.

Labour is so depleted that it is a fringe party. It hadn't the resources to nominate its own candidate and the decision to support the SocDems/PBP nomination of Connolly is backfiring badly. The older Labour types seem to be more of the "social democrat"/Spring Tide variety while some of the younger Labour types may be more radical. The mistake in backing Connolly is that Labour is now seen to be a minor party backing the SocDems candidate. It doesn't matter if Connolly loses. The SocDems have got the kudos for nominating (with PBP) a candidate while Labour sat around debating. If the SocDems play this properly, it should be worth another few points in the opinion polls while Labour continues to remain around 5%. And the SocDems and Labour have the same number of Dail seats.Only one "has" a presidential candidate.

Regards…jmcc

why wouldn’t gavin have ruled myself out already if was a definite no. He could turn his mobile phone back on then

She's pissed that she's still the only one taking the brunt of the media scrutiny, think we can officially call this the Norris effect, she thought she was forcing their hands by going when she did but they are going to delay till the last minute as is entirely their right

Isn't that supposed to be Dame Louise Richardson of the British empire contributer?

For President of Ireland?

Only in MM's FF.

It is like they just spend all their time coming up with new ways to internationally embarass us.

Isn't Gavin ex-Irish Army? That doesn't sound like someone who would appeal to SF (a bit of a 'tense' relationship between them and the forces of the state in the past).

Remember all the hysteria about Climate Change and Greta Thunberg in the 2020 GE? Remember the Housing and Health issues dominating the GE? Remember Charlie Flanagan and the Black and Tans/RIC commemoration?

It was a very abnormal GE and the parties had made their candidate selections before the latter three issues became election issues. SF benefited most from a younger vote as there was a backlash against FF and FG. SF did not have enough candidates. Many of those votes went elsewhere and the Greens benefited from the Climate Change hysteria. Labour did not do so well and the resurrection never happened.

The SocDems (along with PBP) have nominated Connolly. Nominating a presidential candidate is normally reserved for major political parties. Even though the SocDems have the same number of seats as Labour, it is now a signifcant party (around 9% in the opinion polls while Labour is stuck around 5%). In politics, perception matters. The SocDems have a candidate in the election and Labour is backing the SocDem candidate. No wonder Alan Kelly and other Labourites are upset.

A presidential candidate needs to be able to appeal to all demographics. Finlay is a backroom type rather than a politician with a strong public profile. Being well thought of by the aging champagne socialists in the Dublin media isn't enough. A candidate needs votes to win. There's nothing about Finlay that would motivate people to vote. Connolly is a very different candidate in that she has a public profile and the incessant hit pieces by the media are raising her profile. Finlay suffers from the same WTF issue that affects most of the other "candidates" mentioned. The hardest part of a campaign is building public awareness of the candidate. (I think that FF will go for a genuine celebrity candidate).

Labour is no longer a major party. It was in 2011 and on borrowed votes. The whole political model shifted from 2013 to 2018. I think that it would have fared better in the 2024 GE if Kelly had been leader as Bacik is too divisive a figure. Actually, Labour is really a number of parties with an older grouping and a younger more radical grouping. Kelly and the older group seem to have realised the impact of backing Connolly on Labour's political credibility and its aspirations to regain some of the seats it lost. Under Bacik, Labour is competing in a small and highly competitive radical Left field. The bulk of the votes that might vote Labour are in the centre and centre Left part of the political spectrum. It lost the genuine Left long ago. SF moved into the centre Left space abandonded by FF as it drifited to the Right along side FG.

Finlay would have been worse for Labour because it would be proof that it had learned nothing from the last fourteen years.

Regards…jmcc

The SocDems and PBP nominated her. Not Labour. Nominations are generally up to large parties. She is an independent candidate and she was nominated by the SocDems and PBP. The media coverage has focused on the SocDem angle and PBP has one of its most effective politicians out of action (RBB). The mistake Labour made was in jumping on the Connolly bandwagon after the SocDems and PBP had nominated her. The perception is that Labour is no longer a major party and the SocDems are smart enough to get a candidate in the election. It puts the SocDems on the way to being a major party. The first signs of this will be if its support %s in the opinion polls increase during the presidential election. The worst case for Labour would be if its 5% started to drop to around 2 to 3%. Connolly winning or losing is not important for the SocDems in terms of how they are perceived as being a more important party than Labour.

Regards…jmcc

I'm a Libertarian floating voter of the Brethren of the Coast variety. Hardly a SocDemer. Labour used to be the acceptable "None of the above" option for people who didn't want to vote FF or FG. Then the Greens took over that role. Labour was incredibly dependent on transfers from FF and from FG because it was the half-party that either could include to make up a government. That stopped when the 2.5 party model shifted to the Big Three model. One of the most serious mistakes that Labour made in 2011 was in thinking that the election of Higgins, courtesy of RTE and the fake tweet, was a vote for Labour and Higgins. It wasn't. It was a vote against the whole Brown Envelope era of FF and its cronies. FG used Labour to do a lot of its dirty work (the Water Tax etc). In 2016, it did not suffer as badly as Labour. In 2018, Labour ran a very good online campaign for Higgins with the expectation that it would lead to a Labour resurrection in the subsequent GE. The warning signs were evident in the 2019 Local Elections and Euros. The reason was simple: Higgins was the FF/FG candidate in 2018. They endorsed him. SF's candidate was the wrong person at the wrong time. It had begun to move towards the centre/centre Left with when MLMcD became leader but its voter base had not changed. Ni Riada could just have easily been a Labour candidate. It doesn't matter if you don't take what I wrote seriously. That is what happened.

Finlay is a backroom operator rather than a public-facing politician. In electoral terms, he is irrelevant and background noise. He ran against Higgins in 2011 for the Labour candidacy and lost. No doubt some of the newspapers might endorse him but that is not as important as it was once. Most people no longer buy a daily newspaper.

Connolly is very politically correct on issues such as Gaza and Immigration. This may play well with the Dublin media but in reality, the Sentiment Analysis polls have Gaza bouncing around at 3%. It is not a major election issue. As for Immigration, there has been a marked shift away from the open borders insanity due to the stresses the incompetence of the FF/FG/Greens government put on Housing. The media has been focusing on Connolly's connections with Wallace and Daly and her visit to Syria. This is intended to make her less of a threat to the FG candidate (and the FF candidate when named). FG's presidential campaign got Bidenised when McGuinness pulled out on health grounds. Now, FG is in much the same situation as a the Democrats were with Kamala Harris replacing Joe Biden.

Connolly seems to be the candidate for whom you should vote. There may be younger candidates who want to get on the ballot but the process is rigged against such candidates in that they require the backing of politicians to get on the ballot. Not sure if Sheridan would get enough backing either.

Regards…jmcc