RTE: "Poll suggests Heather Humphreys leading Presidential race" - totally misleading.

Turned it off halfways through as I couldn't be dealing with the presenter. His inability to allow the candidates to answer the question he asked without jumping in and asking a second and third hectoring question was just so annoying.

HH did herself no harm, but little good. JG waffled and couldn't give a straight answer. CC was awful and her patronising smile and general ignorence of the real world confirmed to me that she wont be getting a vote from me

We're down to who is the most harmless in our house.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
I didn't see it like that but the bookies agree with you.
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RTE News political correspondent gives it to CC with HH last.
CC had open goals on the housing issue and she didn’t miss.
Betfair has hardened further. Gavin defo performed worst and that was largely down to style rather than content.
 
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Germany is rearming itself in the face of Russian gangster state aggression you say Catherine?

Echoes of Germany in the 1930s Catherine?

Excellent news.

if there was a gofundme page for Germany and indeed any other Country similarly threatened, I'd throw in a a few hundred...at a minimum.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
I don't usually agree with Fintan O'Toole but this is a great article.
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Yes. Do we really want a President who compares modern Germany to the Nazis?
When I said I thought CC won I meant of course that I thought she won the show but she certainly didn't win the argument. I think it is more a case that she surpassed my preconceptions of how she might perform.
 
JG throwing in the towel has damaged HH's prospects. Where will she get those FF transfers from? BTW if you have €8,100 to spare you can pick up an easy €9 as Betfair Lay is 900 on JG. He will be on the ballot paper but zero chance of winning.
1759775454439.webp
 
Brendan Burgess said:
I don't usually agree with Fintan O'Toole but this is a great article.
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Fintan has produced some gems in recent weeks, he must enjoy Irish elections.

I enjoyed this one, from today's column:-

.......What came out here is, however, something that lies deep in Fianna Fáil’s DNA: stroke politics. Pulling Gavin out of a hat was Martin’s ham-fisted version of pulling a stroke. Except that Martin is more Tommy Cooper than Penn and Teller. It turned out to be a stroke in the other sense of the word: a seizure of the brain that has left Fianna Fáil half paralysed.

:D
 
I don't see it as a stroke at all.

He thought he had a good candidate. It was probably backed up by private polling.

And the public often likes people from outside mainstream politics.

And to be fair, he hadn't much choice. If he got a retired judge or a retired respectable politician then that would have been preferable, but he did not have that choice. I don't know if the other MEP guy would have been much better.
 
It was said on Ireland AM today that it is to late to take Jim Gavin's name off the ballot paper, as they are already printed, if this was true and people still voted for him and gave Heather Humphreys no 2 would she revive them?
 
Brendan Burgess said:
I don't know if the other MEP guy would have been much better.
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I think someone like Mary Hanafin - a very experienced politician and ex-Minister could have done a lot better for FF and energised the party faithful to come out and vote. (Apparently MM didn't even return her call when she expressed interest in the contest.)

www.thejournal.ie

'A phone call would've made a difference': Mary Hanafin no longer seeking FF nomination for presidency

Hanafin criticised the party’s handling of both her desire to run for the Áras and former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s.
www.thejournal.ie www.thejournal.ie

“As it came towards the end, I have to say – and I said this to Micheál Martin the other night – a phone call would have made a difference, just to say ‘look, sorry Mary, we’re not running with you’ and I would have accepted that.
 
Shelby219 said:
if this was true and people still voted for him and gave Heather Humphreys no 2 would she revive them?
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I assume the transfers would still be processed as normal from Gavin to the other candidates, if his name is on the ballot and receives a 1st preference. Not all Gavin's transfers were going to Humphreys in the last poll I saw.
 
The best thing that could happen to this mess of an election now would be for enough to vote for Gavin with no second preference such that he cannot be caught by either remaining candidate and then he resigns to force a new election. Of course it's much more likely that a large cohort will simply not vote but this would allow for another go at it.
 
Ceist Beag said:
The best thing that could happen to this mess of an election now would be for enough to vote for Gavin with no second preference such that he cannot be caught by either remaining candidate
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Another reason for FF to continue canvassing for JG is because if he somehow manages to get 25% of the votes cast, they'll be able to reclaim up to €250,000 of their election expenses! If, as is reported, they have blown €½m on posters and silly hats then getting 50% of that back would be a massive bonus for them.
 
So we now learn that Catherine Connolly's "fact finding" trip to Syria in 2018 (accompanied by Clare Daly & Mick Wallace) was funded by the Irish taxpayer. (Presumably Wallace and Daly's trips were also funded from the same source.)

Interestingly, when she was asked by RTE last July who had funded the trip, she claimed that she had. But now a review of her Parliamentary Allowance return for 2018 reveals that she spent €3,700 of the allowance on the junket. Congrats to the journalist who discovered this worrying bout of amnesia by the Irish Left's president-elect.
 
Marsupial said:
Another reason for FF to continue canvassing for JG is because if he somehow manages to get 25% of the votes cast, they'll be able to reclaim up to €250,000 of their election expenses! If, as is reported, they have blown €½m on posters and silly hats then getting 50% of that back would be a massive bonus for them.
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Given that he was only at 15% at the time he ended his campaign, its highly unlikely.
Ceist Beag said:
The best thing that could happen to this mess of an election now would be for enough to vote for Gavin with no second preference such that he cannot be caught by either remaining candidate and then he resigns to force a new election. Of course it's much more likely that a large cohort will simply not vote but this would allow for another go at it.
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That's highly implausible. Most people who typically cast an electoral vote will move to one or other of the remaining candidates, so it will have no effect. Your best option right now is to vote for whichever of the remaining candidates you feel most represents you - even if that is not very much. Someone is going to be elected president of the two remaining candidates and its in your own interest to eliminate the one you feel is worst.

I always say one thing to people: if its not on the ballot paper, you cannot vote for it. This rings very true in this case, even if one of the candidates ends their campaign.
 
Clarity from the Electoral Commission that Jim Gavin is still officially in the race for election. In the unlikely event he received a majority, he would be entitled to take up the role, though that is also unlikely. What's unlikely squared? :D
 
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