Would you vote differently?

Sand wrote: »

I would hazard it had something to do with them squandering the reform mandate they were given by treating the Dail like some irritating inconvenience, sacrificing any claim to be more honest than FF with corruption like Reilly primary care centres and the McNulty Seanad scandal, and finally they blew their claim to competence by being really terrible at corruption like the above, the Callinan debacle etc. The public didn't forget any of that, and they weighed it more important than some dubious claim to "recovery".

This. The brazen "business as usual" political cronyism and corruption that they engaged in was in stark contrast to the political reform that was promised.

It will be interesting to see if the next government will fall into the same trap.

Wouldn't it be nice to imagine that the politicians elected will reach for the chance to achieve actual democracy. Ruling by majority consent across parties. Then again these are the political classes, not actual leaders, we are talking about. party first - public second, with maybe one or two exceptions.

Sand wrote: »

I would hazard it had something to do with them squandering the reform mandate they were given by treating the Dail like some irritating inconvenience, sacrificing any claim to be more honest than FF with corruption like Reilly primary care centres and the McNulty Seanad scandal, and finally they blew their claim to competence by being really terrible at corruption like the above, the Callinan debacle etc. The public didn't forget any of that, and they weighed it more important than some dubious claim to "recovery".

But supporters of the previous government simply refuse to acknowledge any of that. They prefer to feel sorry for themselves that they were punished for "making the hard decisions". In some ways, I am okay with that - they have no chance of recovering if they are unwilling to acknowledge their mistakes.



Wasn't it the FG claim that they would simultaneously cut taxes and improve public services? They blew their claim to fiscal responsibility with that one - the voters didn't buy more Bertienomics.


And you know what? They might be right - that's why open, evidence based debate in the Dail helps lead to better governance. If the Government cannot win support for their policy, its a sign that they might need to re-examine it. The government doesn't need *every* TDs support, they simply need to persuade a majority of them.

We have different views, because you think the purpose of the Dail is to rubberstamp legislation proposed to them by the Government. I think the purpose of the Dail is to examine and test that legislation so really bad ideas are stopped at the first hurdle.

Its all well and good to hope for a parliament that will make all the right decisions and every bad policy is stopped at the first hurdle as you say.

But it does not look like that's what the people want.

The people want what's good for them and tend to go with the candidate who promises it best.

A AAA-PBP flyer came in the door last week.
It promised no water charges, no LPT, USC only after 70k, X thousand more nurses, Y thousand more teachers and ironically a "recall" of any TDs who broke promises.

Now the AAA-PBP guy did not get elected here but a hand full of his colleagues elsewhere did, with the very same message.

With a significant section of Irish voters its a case of "next man up" when it comes to promises.
Lab offered the moon and the stars, but only delivered a quarter moon, so they got destroyed, and were replaced by SF, AAA, SD and independent candidates.

So its "next man up" let's see how they do.
That's not the rejection of Bertienomics that you claim it is.

I really don't know what will become of the 32nd Dail.

FG could form a minority government with the support of FF, knowing full well that FF would pull the rug out from under them over a tough decision if they thought they could gain from it.

If FG don't form a government they will be accused of not acting in the national interest, if they do they will be accused of being power hungry and that the people voted not to have them in government.

FF are not willing to commit to anything for fear that SF will hold the opposition leadership and be the guy that constantly says "I will do X,Y and Z better than they do A,B and C."

SF and the other left parties don't want to be accountable.

Its a bit like the English Civil war or the French revolution.
They cut off the kings head and then did not know what to do without a king.

A question.

Say your local FG candidate is a total waster. And the local FF candidate is an extremely hard working active community oriented worker.

Do people vote FG over FF in this case on principal resulting in being represented by a useless TD.

_Brian wrote: »

A question.

Say your local FG candidate is a total waster. And the local FF candidate is an extremely hard working active community oriented worker.

Do people vote FG over FF in this case on principal resulting in being represented by a useless TD.

In reality the total waster would rearly get elected in the first place.

Politicians put in hell of a lot of work trying to get elected and it starts from their first day in the Dail to their last.

A former FF TD came knocking about 3 years ago, sussing out the lie of the land after the boundary change, out area would have been new to him.

I challenged him on every aspect of the last FF government and he blamed the global economy and the opposition.
Not once did he acknowledged the mistakes that were made.

He never got a nomination in the end.

Last week the new FF candidate came knocking.
He admitted that mistakes were made, he said that they are building from the ground up, new young candidates.
When asked about Martin he admitted that he had baggage but that he was one of the only experienced guys left after 2011.

I was very impressed with him and his attitude.
I did not vote for him but he got elected.

That's the difference between the waster and the hard worker.

oscarBravo wrote: »

I think I see where our fundamental difference of opinion comes in: you think that voters are swayed by evidence and reasoned argument.

And that the public wants good policy.

Scofflaw wrote: »

It's slightly surprising to see Sand as the optimist here, but I'd have to say that historically, evidence and reasoned argument has not been the way to convince the voting public.

That's not to say that I wouldn't like to see more of it - I dearly would, and I'd like even more to see it being effective - but evidence and reasoned argument for the effectiveness of evidence and reasoned argument is in fairly short supply.

By and large, the public is quite time-poor when it comes to examining political argument, and not always equipped with the relevant knowledge or analytical tools to examine them properly. As such, the appearance of evidence and reasoned argument is often all the judgement is made on - and a sufficiently good appearance can hide a lot of poor evidence and reasoning, particularly if you throw in easy mental/emotional shortcuts that lead to the conclusion without needing the evidence and reason.

cordially,
Scofflaw

I think that's a very good point about us being time poor.

Political analysis can be pretty heavy going and most of us eventually just prefer a condensed set of points that lay out various positions.

This in turn helps the candidate when they tell us that the other crowd doing A, B and C is wrong compared to my X,Y and Z.

Sand wrote: »

You mistake my position in terms of optimism/pessimism. I'm for well thought out and argued policy making. I am against badly thought out, unargued, unrecorded solo runs by some small cabal late at night. We've had some experience of that not so long ago. And I mean as recently as the Callinan debacle, let alone the bank guarantee.

If you have faith in the latter sort of government, its not optimism. Its good old Irish Catholic blind faith in arrogant, distant, unaccountable institutions.

I don't think anyone is against well thought out and argued policy making, nor, I think, does anyone have any faith in the kind of 'duumvirate/triumvirate' policy decision-making we've regularly seen in recent years. I certainly can't think of anyone who would support such decision-making over well thought out and argued policy-making.

That people on this thread still pick up thanks for sneering at the maturity and intelligence of Irish voters (but never themselves, they are the smart exceptional ones) is depressing, but it demonstrates why establishment parties continue to decline.

I'd hardly regard it as sneering at the electorate to point out that they're not as interested in politics and policy as they are in their daily lives. We are exceptional - but not because we're smarter, purely because we're more interested than most people.

I'm not sure why that would have anything to do with the decline of the establishment parties, either - if it's a jab at me, it's poorly aimed. I don't support one of the establishment parties, nor ever have done in my voting life.

I'm hopeful that a minority government could lead to a situation where it's necessary to persuade the Dáil and the public of the need for a policy, since that would lead to a greater sense of involvement by the public in the policy setting of the nation. But all of political history suggests that an emotional argument is at least as likely to carry the day as a well-reasoned one, and realistically rather more likely to do so. As such, whoever needs to convince the public is more likely to opt for it, since it's also less work - and, in many cases, the persuader themselves may well have been persuaded by its emotional force rather than the reasoning.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw wrote: »

I'm not sure why that would have anything to do with the decline of the establishment parties, either - if it's a badly aimed jab at me, I don't support one of the establishment parties, nor ever have done in my voting life.

Nope, not a jab at you. I think I can guess your political allegiance, and its not an establishment party - though got badly (and deservedly imo) burnt trying to be.

Its a clear ( I thought) point that the "political classes" interested in politics who form the bedrock of the establishment parties arent going to win votes from Irish voters who they so clearly despise and deride.

Sand wrote: »

Nope, not a jab at you. I think I can guess your political allegiance, and its not an establishment party - though got badly (and deservedly imo) burnt trying to be.

Its a clear ( I thought) point that the "political classes" interested in politics who form the bedrock of the establishment parties arent going to win votes from Irish voters who they so clearly despise and deride.

Perhaps it was made less clear by the reference to thanks on this thread?

And, again, I'd have to accuse you of insufficient cynicism with respect to the results of the most recent election, if I can do so without being accused in turn of sneering at the Irish electorate. Personally, I would wait for the results of the next election before concluding that the establishment parties have lost their grip on the electorate.

FF's resurgence in this one suggests to me that by the next election it's quite possible they'll be back where they were before, and that the results of this election show only the standard 'casting out' of FG/Labour after the latest round of cleaning up the mess, but with the memory of that mess still too fresh to allow FF to be fully forgiven.

cordially,
Scofflaw

oscarBravo wrote: »

None of the above.

Put a bit more effort into it. I'm sure you can figure out what my point is, when you're not too busy reflexively arguing against it.

I get your point - the Irish electorate is composed of people like you.

Money buys votes whether by better campaigning or by putting a bit extra in the electorates pockets - Most people rarely read past the headlines and bullet-points, so evidence and reasonable argument is rarely a consideration. Politics is the practice and theory of influencing other people - Money is the greatest influence.

I voted green in the election. I don't think I would again. I think I would vote for whoever is most likely to form all or part of a government. All this so-called diversity is grand but the country needs a government even if you don't agree with all their policies. A government will have to involve at least one of the largest parties.

Of the three largest parties:
SF, it seems, are unlikely to go into government unless they are the lead party and get their own way on everything. So, that's not going to happen.
FF, it seems, will go into government if they are near to an overall majority. Not going to happen either.
FG, it seems, will go into government with almost anybody and are willing to ditch some policies to do so. That's a possibility.