So Michael D IS running again!

Eric Cartman wrote: »

I caught none of this, care to elaborate ?

I didn't listen to the broadcast but apparently he was constantly needling MDH, saying he'd struggle to walk around the Phoenix Park by the mid-2020s. Suspect he's just playing pantomime villain as the only way he has to attract some attention.

alaimacerc wrote: »

I didn't think she knows too much about it either, mind you. Or was trying to be just a small wee little bit misleading on this. The president has the power to address the Oireachtas... with a message subject to the approval of the government. (Art 13.7(3).) As was pointed out during the programme, I think by Da Incumbent. So the image she was conjuring up, of a heroic SF party-political scolding of the nasty Blueshirts doesn't really pan out.

It just shows how naive Ni Riada is, and how dangerous and reckless she would be as President.

blanch152 wrote: »

It just shows how naive Ni Riada is, and how dangerous and reckless she would be as President.

Surely not as dangerous as Higgins?

blanch152 wrote:

Higgins has actually caused a lot of damage to humanity.

Rhineshark wrote: »

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Surely not as dangerous as Higgins?

Higgins has actually caused a lot of damage to humanity.

I am curious still about Higgins as a danger to humanity.

Saying a few nice things about Castro after he died was one of the great historical crimes, according to blanch.

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Or maybe they just decided to pick a woman, given the success of two other women recently?
Sometimes the simplest explanation is the most credible?

That was my other half-hearted suggestion, "woman of early middle age" demographic. Sadly no-one actually called "Mary" made herself available.

I think basically they made a strategic decision to contest it, and weren't necessarily -- or at least, certainly not detectably -- fighting people off with sticks who wanted to do it. Not even in SF can the leadership just pick someone and have them do it, but per my 'tea girl' lemma -- "thesis" would be a tad too grand -- if Ni Riada was semi-willing, and as one one their more junior elected reps at national level, semi-arm-twistable, good enough.

If she gets 6%, SF won't see it as a disaster, though obviously they'd have hoped for more. It helps continue to normalise them as a party, and they can rationalise the slump from the '11 vote by saying relatively low-profile candidate, popular incumbent, likely with some voter-pool overlap. Build from there for future contests.

alaimacerc wrote: »

That was my other half-hearted suggestion, "woman of early middle age" demographic. Sadly no-one actually called "Mary" made herself available.

I think basically they made a strategic decision to contest it, and weren't necessarily -- or at least, certainly not detectably -- fighting people off with sticks who wanted to do it. Not even in SF can the leadership just pick someone and have them do it, but per my 'tea girl' lemma -- "thesis" would be a tad too grand -- if Ni Riada was semi-willing, and as one one their more junior elected reps at national level, semi-arm-twistable, good enough.

If she gets 6%, SF won't see it as a disaster, though obviously they'd have hoped for more. It helps continue to normalise them as a party, and they can rationalise the slump from the '11 vote by saying relatively low-profile candidate, popular incumbent, likely with some voter-pool overlap. Build from there for future contests.

Not exactly a job that will appeal to many, especially those in early to mid career.

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Not exactly a job that will appeal to many, especially those in early to mid career.

Yeah, the only actual names I heard even mentioned were each (I think) of the other SF MEPs. There was no sense whatsoever that any of them were elbowing anyone out of the way to get to do it. (Not that I know of what goes on in their smoke-free backrooms, obviously.)

Its a most uninspiring presidential race. The cost of the presidency is just a sideshow to make up for the lack of redeeming charactersitics in most of the candidates. Nice people im sure , but not presidential for me. Presidential features is open to everyones interpretation thou.

Think i voted for Gallagher last time. Probably due to the novelty of a tv personality running and the fact that we would have a business man representing us during the recession. Novelty of that has wore off now. Ill vote higgins , if i vote. Apologies if this sounds like a rant.

rovertom wrote: »

He is surely only there to throw muck at Michael D. It wouldn't look presidential for Gallagher to start throwing insults. It's easier for Gallagher to stand back and have him do it.

Apparently Gallagher was actually chastising Casey for his bad manners toward Higgins during the debate, so a fairly elaborate good cop/bad cop routine, but one I genuinely wouldn't put past Gallagher to orchestrate if Casey was up for it.

Rhineshark wrote: »

Going by the huge margin currently for Higgins, I think the candidates have been rather dismissed an masse, whether or not they got a fair shake.

This seems an excellent upsum. There's too many of them, they're median-rubbish at best, someone needs to slap some sense into some local councillors. If we'd even two fewer (Casey and whichever of the other dwagons one deems the more rank -- I'd say Gallagher, opinion polls would say Duffy) -- it would look like less of an exploding clown car, and the remaining candidates might get fairer scrutiny.

And I say that though the current setup apparently favours Higgins, and I think he's by far the best candidate, and thus this may produce (or hasten) a good outcome. But by bad means.

On the poll, it was a telephone poll, which indicates older voters still. But the younger demographics also seem to be broadly pro-Higgins as well.

To recapitulate an explainer on this from earlier in the thread: certainly this is an issue, but they do try to correct for it by use of weighted sampling. At least if the pollsters are worth their fee -- and a bookie's is paying for this one, and I hear they like to make money, rather than squander it.

If anything, I'd guess that the younger, somewhat more progressive agegroup will favour Higgins (magic leprechaun socialist grandpappy) and Ni Riada (the most 'radical' option available, also the youngest, less polarised on SF legacy issues). What young person is voting for the Dana-lite, or the random suits off of Old Person TV? (What young person is voting at all, I also wonder, but that's another day's work.)

FrancieBrady wrote: »

They do the 'constraining' do they not using the constraints provided by the constitution.

And I don't think Ni Riada said she would use the ability to 'excoriate' the government, but to raise issues that they maybe be ignoring etc

I'm not going to pretend to recall her exact choice of words, but the clear impression was that she'd use the power to summon the government and scold them on housing, etc, like naughty schoolchildren. Clearly that doesn't work. She could still do a little bit of scolding on her own initiative -- she's hardly likely to get removed from office. The government would just grin and bear it, as they have on occasion with some of Higgins's envelop-pushing remarks.

So the error here isn't so much the thought to be a little bit party-political, it's that she appeared not to know how the power in question actually operates. Bit of a howler, as it's literally the very next line from the one she apparently did read. I think she mostly got away with it -- there were some squabbling voices, but she dealt with it fluently and assertively enough (even if wrongly). Unlike Freeman's error in the same category, which was utterly painful: her groping around for an answer, and no-one else was saying a darn thing. Small enough set of powers, what say you revise 'em!

Freeman I suppose can claim she was hard done by. She didn't know this would be on the final exam! Whereas Riada brought hers up out of a clear blue sky. But tough, them's the breaks, Joan.

Maybe you have revealed what you fear there?

Unmasked! Yes, I'm a large-scale Rachmanite slum landlord, and my one weakness would not be, say, an actual left-wing government, but the same endless rotations between Tweedlegael and Tweedlefail, with first a minor Shinner being elected to an almost entirely ceremonial office, and then a constitutional amendment being passed to allow her to do... what she could have done anyway, but in a posher setting.

Or, alternatively, my thinking is what I actually say it is. Who can say for sure.

Personally I think if we the people elect a president we should not (by dint of our constitution) immediately restrain them upon taking office. Seems to me it is a provision from a more conservative time, like other constitutional provisions we have recently amended.

I don't think it makes much sense to reinvent the Dáil. In a parliamentary system you want a clear division of powers, not to have the head of state trying to manage the legislature or the executive. The presidency is effectively supposed to fulfil the role of a bicycling monarchy, only without the crown. Or the bicycle, to be fair. (Maybe without even bus fare, depending on how the presidential-budget Dutch auction goes.)

A standalone referendum on this would look farcical, frankly. "We're changing this because... a SF candidate said it should work this way in a debate one time!" Maybe in the context of some sweeping changes to the office, or to more besides. Very unclear what that'd be, though.

Duffy getting huffy on Morning Ireland when he interpreted a question as implying he was a philistine. Absolutely no need for the petulant answer. Comes across as completely self absorbed and ego driven.

nuac wrote: »

Afaik Higgins was never a law lecturer.

He lectured in politics