Presidential Election 2025

Is he a regular presenter or a behind the scenes guy? First time listening and while some what interesting he didn't seem a great communicator. She was annoying too, trying to put words in his mouth at time.

I always thought TDs expenses were untouched so unlike most of their constituents they can reclaim expenses irrespective of spend. I’ve heard that Ministers simply divide their annual allowance by 12 and claim monthly in advance. That could be unsubstantiated slander but it’s pretty fitting for the do as I say not as I do brigade. Pity their bosses don’t do something about it…..Oh wait😀

It surprises me any interest in this election.

I'd be surprise if Connolly did not win, Humphreys has an up hill battle to get people out on the day of the vote.

Those that will go out to vote will be invested Connolly voters and potentially invested spoilers, with an even lower turnout than the last Presidential Election of 44%.

CC vs HH debate on Radio 1 RTE at 5PM today

RTÉ Radio 1, no? https://www.thejournal.ie/connolly-and-humphreys-to-go-head-to-head-in-rte-drivetime-debate-this-evening-6839325-Oct2025/

It’s all Teflon though - it’s a good exercise to see her being challenged and caught out but without her support dropping - it illustrates just how much bullsh1t the left is willing to tolerate to get their “man” into office.

It’s very similar to what happened in America and Trump, although the CC loyalists here will hate me comparing their precious St. Catherine - blessings be upon her- to Trump 😀.

Clearly, whether left or right, contentious views are over looked if the field is poor - Harris was a terrible candidate for the Democrats - HH similarly is not hitting the mark with more centre and right leaning voters - with those set of conditions in play, I wouldn’t be surprised if CC claimed she could shoot someone on O’Connell st and still get into the Aras 🤪

'I do believe in rehabilitation, and second chances; but perhaps, on mature recollection, the hiring of a former member of eirigi may have been an error on my part'

Why would she do that if she believes the opposite.

Her 'honesty' is her USP if you ask me. It knocked both HH and JG (even before his exposure) into a cocked hat in the polls.

She simply isn't going to take the PR company directive - stand for nothing and they can't get at you - FF FG way.

It has very little to do with HH being 'boring' and has every thing to do with the electorate being smart enough to suss that CC is being herself while HH is a 'here's one we prepared earlier' in the FG kitchen confection.

If you see someone as being essentially honest you can cope with not agreeing with everything they say.

I think that is what is happening here.

Exactly this for everything related to Connolly, look at the Gemma stuff it took her weeks to admit in hindsight it was probably a mistake when she and her staff should have known it would be the first question out the door so either they didn't know they would get hit with it which is a problem in itself or didn't understand to get it behind them they should have a prepared answer that wasn't effectively "Even with the hindsight that Gemma turned out to be racist alt right conspiracy theorist I still think I didn't do anything wrong".

She seems incapable of admitting to making any kind of mistake without constant hounding.

Just look at the comments around Germany and the 1930s not only was she incredibly crass and lazy in making the comparisons as the absolute first thing people would go to was obviously Nazis, she was also completely factually inaccurate as in the 1930s Germany was growing its military spending from 17%-40% of GDP, right now they are looking to increase it to the lofty highs of 3.5%….

Provincial newspapers like the IT no longer have the national market they had in 2011 or even in 2018. Before Covid, the IT was selling around 50K copies a day. Most people do not purchase a daily newspaper. This means that the IT is competing with both broadcast media and Social Media for relevance.

The two weeks before an election are when people make up their minds on voting. But this has been a very strange election campaign. The hit pieces from the legacy media about Connolly have actually worked in her favour because people got to see her on broadcast media and in the debates. She appeared presidential while the other two candidates didn't. That damaged the credibility of the legacy media that had been targeting her. She was the anti-FFG candidate and now she seems to be on the way to becoming the anti-establishment candidate. The stupidity of Harris and Martin in blocking candidates at council level has also helped her. Some of the more conservative voters who might have voted #1 for Steen may have transferred to Humphreys and Gavin. Those voters may not vote now as they have been ignored by FFG. Now, FF has no candidate in the election. FF voters may not even bother voting. Those FF votes on which Humphreys is depending may not appear.

No amount of propagandising from legacy media journalists can compete with a competent and effective media performance. They simply don't have the same scales of market and reach. The negative coverage of Connolly in the legacy media also has elements in common with the way Trump was covered in the US media. It was that wall to wall coverage of Trump that drowned out coverage of Hillary Clinton in 2016. The same effect is glaringly obvious with the Connolly coverage. Humphreys and Gavin were getting minimal coverage. Connolly was dominating the news cycle. Look at the IT coverage today. Who are they covering?

I really dont believe this election is over yet. It is/was Connollys to lose.

But if we are going to wake up every few days, and be greeted by more of these types of stories, it will

• cut away at her support
• embolden an 'Anyone But Connolly' campaign.
• Hand Humphreys sticks to attack CC with

Its like we are watching a play, called 'How to Lose an Election', or 'How to shoot yourself in the foot' -

She is LITERALLY doing this to herself.

Indeed if anyone is of the opinion that Gavin should have repayed the money when it happened(he should have) or that MM should have avoided Gavin when he found out about the 3k(he also should have) to get ahead or avoid that eventual clusterfuck they should also apply the same critiques to Connolly who keeps refusing to even try get ahead of anything or be prepared for the OBVIOUS next issues and questions that are going to keep coming as this is a presidential election and that's how it works like it or not.

On the evictions story I don't have a problem with her doing her job and I don't have a problem with evictions as they are something that needs to keep happening as stopping them entirely will only create more problems. However her core voter base are likely vehemently anti-eviction so she again needs to be prepared to talk about it the moment its put to her which she never seems ready to do on any of these issues that should have been flagged weeks ago and are going to keep coming.

Right now it absolutely is her race to lose and she seems to be doing her damnedest to make that happen by refusing to acknowledge that sometimes people ie her make a mistake and the easiest way to kick these stories off the front page is admit to that or be prepared with appropriate answers.

That's simply not true! There is a deliberate approach by the media to damage CC, that is unquestionable in my view. There is an undue focus on CC because she is not a centrist and she dares to have opinions that are deemed either unacceptable or 'controversial' by sections of the pol corrs who are unashamedly centrist themselves.

Look at how Leahy's column was presented in the IT on Saturday with 'Russia' and 'CC', it's subtle to a point but it's so blatantly obvious what it's intention- the same play book used against Saunders in the US, Corbyn in the UK etc. Look at John Lee in the Mail or Mooney in the ST....these are woefully biased journos pursuing a deliberate strategy.

Today, there's the use of the allowance - why is this a story, it's a story because it's the IT trying to use the Syria angle to damage her having seen it fail miserably the first time.

Your continued insistence at blaming CC and essentially giving the media a free pass is wrong.

I have to agree here, the IT is on what can only be described as a 'crusade' against a single candidate.

Anyone with an interest knows(and the current Syria smearing is not aimed at those who know)that the context of the original question - 'who funded the trip' - was seeking to find out was it funded by those sympathetic to al-Assad.
Now the answer at the time 'I funded it myself' is being used as a gotcha.
It is so obviously transparent stuff.

Could say the same for CC, she's a bit 'rough around the edges' so to speak in terms of how she expresses her opinions. But perhaps that’s also what makes her come across as genuine and unfiltered, rather than rehearsed or sticking to party lines.