So Michael D IS running again!

nc6000 wrote: »

So two councillors in Waterford voted for Gemma O'Doherty. Scary stuff.

Cork County councillor actively campaigning for her to get the nom, what's worse. (Not going to give him the link or the name-drop, but he's an outraged-at-everything DDI-splitter type, it seems.)

alaimacerc wrote: »

If you feel that assessment of your posts qualifies someone as a "Higgins supporter", you really are seeing them everywhere.

Well it is the Boards.ie politics section.

Except, of course, in your quasi-psephological notions that he's about to go down in flames to a warmed-over SG candidacy.

It does upset the cozy groupthink. And there are so many variables that it could even result in an SF president depending on whether Higgins gets eliminated in the first rounds of counting the votes. That's not an impossibility however unlikely it seems at this remove.

Regards...jmcc

Hurrache wrote: »

It's obvious to everyone you have issues with Higgins.

I have issues with the manner in which he was elected.

But because everyone aren't rolling on behind you it doesn't mean they're all part of a cozy group think influenced by each other and the media.

But there is quite an ideological echo chamber effect here.

And reading such phrases from you marks you as an agenda driven crank on this issue.

I'll endeavour to use simpler phrases in the future.

Regards...jmcc

alaimacerc wrote: »

What odds are you giving yourself on that one? Very unlikely indeed for there to be a first-round elimination of the incumbent.

It is not impossible for there to be an elimination of Higgins in the first rounds and it requires a drift of the floating vote that elected Higgins in 2011. That's partially happened already with the collapse of Labour to 3% in the latest opinion poll. Fianna Fail is now back in the top three parties set and there's only six seats between it and Fine Gael. There is also a major vulnerability in Higgins' campaign in that the Labour grassroots vote getting engine won't be so efficient this time as Labour lost 81 seats in the 2014 Local Elections. It also went from 37 seats to 7 seats in 2016, GE on GE. The FF/FG "My Little Crony" strategy to have a coronation for Higgins to save money on election expenses has also largely failed in the coronation aspect. FF and FG, whether they like it or not are locked into a presidential election and neither of them has a declared candidate. However, Gallagher is the proxy FF candidate and will get FF votes and Duffy may well turn out to be a proxy FG candidate. There's also a "stab in the back" dynamic over the way that RTE nobbled Gallagher to get Higgins elected. That could be good for Gallagher and it could crystalise the FF vote in his favour. The first round of eliminations is always the one where the no-hopers are eliminated. The second round is where it gets more interesting. In a diverse field of candidates, the distribution of votes is important and Higgins has to survive long enough for those to come into play.

Or it becomes implausibly hyper-partisan, with every Blueshirt in the country voting Duffy, every FFer Gallagher, and every Republican and cod-feminist for Ní Riada. In the second round, leaving a Shinner and a Dwaggin, maybe.

Without the FG, SF and Labour vote that got Higgins through the last time, there is a possibility that the later rounds will be between Gallagher/FF, Duffy/FG and Ni Riada/SF. There's also an scenario where Freeman will attract votes on the basis of being a "None of the above" candidate and that could damage Higgins' vote.

The indication that Higgins is in serous trouble will be a trend towards 15% in the middle of the campaign opinion polls.

Regards...jmcc

Henryhill2 wrote: »

I'm assuming Duffy and Gallagher will be starting up their good cop/ bad cop campaign soon

i wonder will they play the age card

Already been mentioned when Duffy was announcing his campaign.

Regards...jmcc

Henryhill2 wrote: »

Or the newspapers or Duffy/Gallagher fling something at MDH and it gets traction

Watch the Aras expenses issue. And of course there's the RTE whistleblower story that the Sindo is running with.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc wrote: »

It is not impossible for there to be an elimination of Higgins in the first rounds and it requires a drift of the floating vote that elected Higgins in 2011. [etc, etc]

i.e. the "implausibly hyper-partisan" scenario I alluded to. In a presidential election, pretty much everyone is "floating", in any meaningful sense of the word. But they have to have a reason that makes sense to them to float away from a particular candidate, as distinct from some broad party-political lumping exercise.

The indication that Higgins is in serous trouble will be a trend towards 15% in the middle of the campaign opinion polls.

Wrong grammatical mood here. Word you're looking for here is "would", not "will".

This thread is rapidly turning into an exercise of those would didn't vote for Higgins first time around -- and wouldn't ever in a fit -- casting around for scenarios, however unlikely, that lots of people that did are bitterly regretting it, and will find some reason to elect some other randomer this time.

Your bookie colleagues certainly don't seem to be buying it, at this point.

alaimacerc wrote: »

i.e. the "implausibly hyper-partisan" scenario I alluded to. In a presidential election, pretty much everyone is "floating", in any meaningful sense of the word. But they have to have a reason that makes sense to them to float away from a particular candidate, as distinct from some broad party-political lumping exercise.

Some of the elctorate that voted for Higgins is dead. Presidential elections are also driven by party political dynamics and it was generally traditional that parties nominated their own candidates. Gallagher is being considered as the proxy FFer and Duffy the proxy FGer. Higgins is the Labour candidate despite having resigned from the party. Ni Riada will be the SF candidate.

Wrong grammatical mood here. Word you're looking for here is "would", not "will".

Why don't you point out that I didn't spell "serious" correctly too?

This thread is rapidly turning into an exercise of those would didn't vote for Higgins first time around -- and wouldn't ever in a fit -- casting around for scenarios, however unlikely, that lots of people that did are bitterly regretting it, and will find some reason to elect some other randomer this time.

No. It is the kind of thread rarely seen in this forum because most posters are incapable of the kind of thinking necessary to work out the possible scenarios. This lack of joined-up thinking also resulted in people expecting things like Brexit to never happen, HRC to win and Trump to lose and FG to get over 60 seats in the the last GE. The problem is that most people relied -- and still do -- on poor analysis from the media and ended up getting blindsided when these events happened.

Your bookie colleagues certainly don't seem to be buying it, at this point.

I don't have any bookie colleagues and I don't bet. But then the bookies have made their fortunes from people who believe that they have a sure thing.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc wrote: »

Yes. The other parties have better support in the younger demographics.

Doesn't matter if they don't vote.

Regards...jmcc

I sense that Michael D is very popular with younger voters.

alaimacerc wrote: »

Because I didn't notice it, and because even if I had, that seems waaaay less Freudian. The will-vs-would one suggesting as it does conflation of possibility, wish, and prediction.

I don't indulge in pathetic Lit.Crit dissections of text coupled with back of a magazine pseudo-psychology. As I said, the indication that Higgins is in serious trouble will be a trend towards 15% in the middle of the campaign opinion polls.

Sure thing. Only you can have the dispassionate clarity to lay out the "possible scenarios". Unbiased as you clearly are between any personal preference between them. And equally unbiased by their actual likelihood.

To put it in some kind of context you can understand, I got the spread (difference in seat count between the largest of the three parties and and the smallest) in the 2016 GE correct and pointed out that the 80% likelihood to vote adjustment used by one pollster was guaranteeing a false view of what was about to happen in the GE.

I also got a lot of flak for pointing out that HRC's campaign was in serious trouble as early as September 2016 and the Trump had a high probability of winning if it was not dealt with. It was clear early on that Trump's Big Data operation was superior to HRC's and it took the Cambridge Analytica thing for people to realise why.

I also got the Brexit vote right because I noticed the flaws in the opinion polling methodologies.

Some of the same flaws occurred in the US presidential election and the Big Data angle was completely overlooked by most people in the media, and people like your good self, because they hadn't a clue about it.

Having a record of getting things like this right does count for a bit more than waffling about Freudian slips and other rubbish.

And from people that think they're getting "good-value odds" on their "possible scenarios". That in reality are indeed wildly unlikely.

As I said, I don't bet.

Regards...jmcc

eastwest wrote: »

They'll make up stuff about him anyway, and some of it will stick because people want to believe it. He's anything but over the line; we could end up with a Trump of our own before it's over.

Actually Trump is the Gallagher style candidate that succeeded. There are some interesting similarities such as the use of Social Media but Trump's operation was far more sophisticated.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc wrote: »

Traditionally, younger voters don't vote as reliably as older voters. So while there may be some support there, it may not translate into votes. And SF is very strong in younger demographics.

Regards...jmcc

Depends what you call young. I would be talking about up to 35.

Too early to be speculating on this. When we see the first volleys of the campaign fired and the first opinion poll we will know better.