Presidential Election 2025

he had no choice. FG are their government partners. It would come across as sad/cheap to not offer support for their government partners; and no way in hell they could back CC, whom SF and PBP are backing.

Like or or not-mostly not-praising Israel still doesn't turn you into a ''neo-fascist'. Even the Democratic party in the USA is strongly in the grasp of the Israli lobby. Using words so loosely and imprecisely doesn't make you look smart, it is reminiscent of shouty street radicals or of MAGA for whom everybody against them is the ''radical left''.

A Lively Debate between Two Poor Candidates

Having listened to the debate, I remain relatively bewildered by the choice we face. It was a lively debate, and again, we must say that Gavin’s exit makes for a more flowing conversation. But it doesn’t change the fact that we have two ill-suited candidates running for Election.

Catherine Connolly

Consistently, one must admit that CC is the best communicator in this election cycle. She outlines her messages with clarity, leaving no one in doubt as to her positions. Ones opinion on the foreign policy portion of this debate, hinges on where you stood beforehand. Connolly is of the anti-war activist left, and remains very comfortable ‘promoting peace’, while simultaneously attacking a supposed European ‘Military Industrial Complex’. In responding to questions about Ukraine, she tends always to pivot toward the ‘need for peace’, while wilfully avoiding discussions of how it can be achieved in the face of Russian aggression. At one point she seemed to answer a question about Ukraine/Russia by attempting to pivot toward condemning Israel over the Gaza Genocide. She again seemed to condemn Russia as a secondary point, to that of being alarmed by ‘European Militarism’; and on this point, she referred to genuine criticism as ‘the politics of fear’.

Connolly was comfortable in defending her position on Eirigi, and seems to brush off criticisms of how she handled this scandal. On the Aras/Rapist story, CC also managed to dodge directly dealing with it, thanks largely to a lack of coherence on the part of Humphreys. On other topics including that of Northern Ireland, CC did make more of an impact than last week, and finished the debate in a confident first place.

Heather Humphreys

Humphreys came out swinging for CC on foreign policy, but failed to pin her opponent down on contentious topics including Europe, and Russia. She did make herself more vocal on these issues, and, to me at least, made more sense in how she views Ukraine/Russia. Her deficit on communication is very relevant though, as she failed to break through on these topics, with CC remaining confident in her positions. On the topic of Ivan Yates she did well in distancing herself from said broadcaster, and the analogy to the Joe Brolly story was apt. But in attacking CC on the Eirigi, and Rapist/Aras fiascos, Humphreys lost coherence, and failed to really make an impact.

Heather seemed ill-prepared for the attack lines on her time in government, and could be seen as running aground when defending her record. Speaking of the ‘bravery’ she felt for going into government, as opposed to being on the opposition bench, was entirely glib and ludicrous in my opinion. Her attempt to attack Connolly about the actions of Paul Murphy RE Joan Burton, backfired entirely, and was an abysmal line to employ. Humphreys did well in speaking about Northern Ireland, but overall she failed to make as big an impact during this debate as a whole. She is clearly, and without doubt, the second place candidate in the debate, and in the campaign so far.

Conclusion

The debates are coming hot and fast now, and on this one, Connolly again emerges triumphant. I remain aghast at her foreign policy positions, and am left concerned that it may reflect a popular but incoherent opinion on the matter in this country. I will be interested to see how the polls fluctuate over the next two weeks, but could easily see Connolly maintaining the lead.

Humphreys remains the second placed candidate in this election. She definitely made her presence felt, and more so in this debate than on previous encounters. But she fails to really register any serious wins, on anything except Foreign Policy. Even with regard to FP, Connolly outclasses Humphreys in communication, so that the later fails to register a big enough win on this topic.

I remain convinced that Humphreys will lose, unless Connolly suffers a catastrophe in the last weeks of this election cycle. While it is not impossible to see a decent candidate achieve a dramatic comeback in the time remaining, I don’t view Humphreys as such a candidate.

I hope the government wont be deterred from improving our military capability by a potential CC victory. 0.25% of GDP is pathetically small. Defending yourself is not warmongering.

During WW2 the government raised a Local Defence Force that had tens of thousands of (then) men. They also tried to buy arms from the US but UK diplomacy blocked it.

I'm not warming to tepid Humphreys either and in any other election this mediocrity would come low on my list…and Gavin would have come lower again. But I'm outraged that the Greens and Labour are getting into bed with the Shinners in supporting such a blatantly anti-EU candidate and-most of all, above everything else-her disgraceful (to invert the usual phrase) ''praising Putin with faint damn'' and hand-wringing about Ukraine have damned her in my eyes. Never mind FFG…If the ballot paper was in order, Dustin, Zig (or Zag), Enoch Burke, Michael Healy-Rae and tankie Connolly, I'd fill in 1,2.3,4 and leave 5 blank.

D. McCullough asked CC to answer the two questions that HH want answered. Her response was “What was the question again” ????? . And in answering the Q re ‘Did you ask Ms Shannon what she was going to use the guns for’ . CC completely avoided answering the Q and HH failed to point that out. She rambled on about signing her in daily as was normal proceedure, etc, etc, etc, etc. She knowsEXACTLY what she is doing re answering each Q. Eg a bit of deflection mixed in with some whataboutary while quoting some constitution articles, .

A top class soccer player does not necessairly go on to be a good manager. In the same way , a very articulate person is not necessairly a very safe pair of hands. So we should be very careful what we wish for

It is becoming increasingly obvious that FG and the Humphreys campaign is resorting to smear tactics. In the RTE debate, Humphreys made an error in fact. Murphy did not lock Burton in her car. What McCullagh did was to protect RTE from liability in any defamation action. Now, you may approve of such smear tactics but the electorate may not. It was a crass attempt at guilt by association.

The alternate view is what “punches” are landing on HH? Where has she slipped up?

CC isn't throwing punches, it's not her style - she did however reference Yates, comments and I suspect they have penetrated somewhat, I think, judging by the polls, but many people have seen what was happening anyway. Secondly, and more importantly HH is behind in the polls hence the punches and she needs them to land and thus far, they haven't.

I think people on here are mostly partisan, and are not thinking of the middle ground reaction.

True but the polls are your friend here..

I think HH’s unfulfilled promises 11 years ago on learning the Irish language are damaging to her for some.

I'd be shocked if it were anyway significant - I think many people believe the President should speak Irish, I'm indifferent on the matter - in the 2022 census 60% of people said they couldn't speak Irish so a non Irish speaking president isn't a huge deal, IMO.

In the same way that the Jobstown protests from 11 years ago are damaging to CC for some.

What's 'some' though and it wasn't CC, it was PM, one person in the CC campaign - One of JBs successors is far more prominent in said campaign, it's a desperate move by HH and again it's just throwing punches and hoping they hit on something…

Whatever about the candidates, the attack dogs online are engaged in smears but its both sides. The most disgusting one is jibes at HH's religion. I was reading thejournal comments today and some of them suggesting she's a Unionist when she has said she is an Irish Republican. They never used these tactics against Mary Robinson's husband who is a Northern Protestant.

Slander is an obsolete term. The correct term is 'defamation'. McCullagh had to protect RTE. Humphreys made an error in fact in saying that Murphy locked Burton in her car. He did not. McCullagh was protecting RTE from a potential defamation action on this matter.

As confident as you were that Gavin was going to 'destroy' Connolly in the first debate?

I ran into the local FG councillor yesterday at the shops. All he had was negative campaigning about Connolly, never said a word about Heather. His piece de resistance was that Connolly was on the wrong side of the Venezuela thing. I'm sure that's gonna resonate deeply with the burghers of south Dublin.