Presidential Election 2025

For SF to get “FF/FG” “OUT” they need at least a portion of “middle Ireland’ if they couldn’t get a middle Ireland Presidential Candidate from their own political gene pool. What does it say about a shot at DE?

It is a sign they are even further away from doing so in general elections, in my view. And FF and FG are cute enough to know that together they would get more vote combined under PR than they would apart. Themselves including Labour likeminded independents, know full well their combined supporter base (the majority of the ROI electorate). Still find the idea of SF in power in DE unpalatable.

Basically it is is proof (if it were needed) to show SF are not ready despite all the bluster.

A sign of change would be SF having a palatable presidential candidate of their own. Instead of from another party (Labour) in independents clothes.
That sign is not even here yet. SF are caught between playing to two very different voting bases in two jurisdictions. But they can never admit that because it would be “partitionist”.

He ruled himself out back in June, but apparently a lot of groundwork was done since, and SF thought they had him, hence the 'ground changing' comments at the ploughing, but he backed out.

Hence why the big reveal today was…. a nothing burger.

They also missed a blindingly obvious open goal by not endorsing HH even if they couldn't find their own candidate. She's a Presbyterian from a border county - they could have made hay there on their UI agenda.

Word on the street.

Why did SF wait so long to back CC?

Why was there a big "reveal" today?

Even journalists at today's press conference were scratching their heads.

Ivan Yates was on the ball on this during the week. I am sure a lot of what happened over the past few days will come out in due course. As if the intention all along was to back CC… and if that was so, why wait till now?

Long enough around here to know it always was gonna be.
They had two choices, consolidate left alliance or go it alone.
They went for the first one.

I'm delighted they did. Gives the person I think is the best candidate a real shout at it and has knock on benefits whatever happens.

Personally I think she’s a terrible candidate but we’ll soon see what the Irish electorate decide

They could probably do it “privately’ deliberately not going against HH political attacks etc. But publicly it would be difficult to spin as Mary Lou loves calling FF/FG “more of the same”.How could she couch it?

I think SF should have poached Eamon O’Cuiv and had him run under the SF banner. 75 years of age. It wasn’t too long ago he was giving SF the glad eye.

Aye, I figured you thought that from your demeaning cover of the book judgment.

I wonder will Catherine Connollys association with George Galloway be raised over the course of the election

“A promotional poster for the event shows SF TD Mairéad Farrell, Independent TD and Dáil vice chair Catherine Connolly listed among the speakers, as well as controversial Irish MEPs Clare Daly and Mick Wallace.Former British MP Mr Galloway, who was sacked from his TalkRadio show after he made an allegedly “anti-semitic” comment on social media, will also be speaking at the forum.“

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/senior-sinn-fein-td-and-dail-vice-chair-catherine-connolly-to-take-part-in-neutrality-forum-with-meps-clare-daly-mick-wallace-and-former-mp-george-galloway/a900693983.html

It definitely sounds like they were hugely split on the issue internally. Why didn't they back her two or three weeks ago? This could hardly have been their main option for the last month. Will they even offer CC fulsome support or will it be very half-hearted?

Alphabet soup at least has variety.

So now the president can 'take the country somewhere'. 😁

I think a lot of people will agree with her, Ireland doesn't need an army capable of taking part in NATO or costing what it would be to be in it.

We need to properly fund and value our defence forces in a way successive governments haven't.
They can cry and scaremonger now about Triple Locks and joining NATO, the facts are the governing parties represented in this election hollowed out the existing defence forces for decades because it suited them.

We don't need an army in the NATO sense.

We need properly funded and valued security and defence forces.

Anything that can potentially damage CC will be raised by sections of the media. There's been so much of that nonsense has been raised so far and if polls show her doing well it'll be stepped up again.

Not really sure what's wrong with speaking at a neutrality forum but I'm sure the Irish Times et al. will find something to say..