Presidential Election 2025

This thread is so out of touch. All the "issues" here are just contrived shte that people don't really care about.

The only one that will hurt is Connolly's links. Who has a cousin in the Orange Order, doesn't talk a UI up enough or failed honours Irish won't matter a fuk to an electorate who in truth don't care about language or the North.

The scaremongering, about trashing international relations and capital flight. we have heard over the years has been bizarre and not a single bit of it has ever come true.

not everybody. Just instances. Some of her “mutterings” I think are clueless. I should have been clearer.

She’s far from clueless. Well read and well educated woman.

Did you see the ejit they elected as Ceann Comhairle.

Its early days.

I just think we have to wait for the debates, and for the campaigns to kick off properly. As it stands we have dont have enough to go on with regard to HH and JG.

Humphreys

With HH, there seems to be an attempt to bring up her 'orange' background, when ever possible. But much of it is landing as a positive progressive step for Ireland. She seems a relatively inoffensive character. Minor may be another term that is appropriate. I dont see anything nasty coming up about her. I have heard her referred to as boring - which is a double edged sword when it comes to a presidential candidate. Its not good to be boring during a campaign, but she is unlikely to ruffle anyones feathers during a presidency.

Gavin

As for JG, there seemed to be some sort of smear attempt during the week, which went no where. I got a whatsapp suggesting as much, but when i followed it down the rabbit hole, it seemed to originate from John McGuirk et al. Seems to have been nonsense, and McGuirk got a lot of pushback due to a number of his tweets. We havent seen enough of JG, so its difficult to predict how the campaign will progress. FF will be anxious to play up his military background, as opposed to his well known fame in GAA circles. But when i see him, I cant help but feel he is out of his league here (no pun intended)

Connolly

CC has probably been the bigger story this week. And in my view, its been less than stellar. There should IN THEORY be time to course correct. If she takes the obvious advice, and concentrates on domestic matters, she could definitely make an impact during the election cycle. It just depends on who she is listening to. I have to assume she has campaign advisors who will direct her attentions elsewhere. The Irish Language decifict of her opponents is an obvious bonus for CC. She could capitalize on disaffection about budget 2026, and she could attack FFG for not making enough progress on housing. A lot of room for improvement, but as i stated before, Connollys biggest opponent tends to be herself.

Just have to watch and see where it goes.

Does she want to win, though? So far she seems to be indulging herself and scaring off uncommitted voters.

Can't wait for former director of military aviation and UN mission staff officer, Jim Gavin, to absolutely destroy Connolly on defence and security in the debates.

The first of which is Monday, I believe.

Gavin will be too afraid to take any position I'd bet.

It will be good to see how he performs.

We've heard it about Higgins, even his wife was gonna bring opprobrium and the apocalypse of nobody talking to us. Apple, and the corporations were gonna take flight etc etc etc YAWN!

Interesting point made on the Irish Times politics podcast today. They ran a story about Connolly and her comments about Germany and the 1930s and the reporter said that the largest cohort to get in touch about it were Connolly supporters who were despairing at her campaign so far, self inflicted mistake after mistake. Hard to disagree with it from where I'm looking anyway.