Was Gallagher ‘holed above or below the water line’?
It’s worth following the Irish Times live blog today… Interesting speculation that the spectacular media ambush may not have hit its intended mark:
08:44
The big question of course is just how badly damaged Sean Gallagher was by last Monday’s Prime Time ambush. As one pundit put it, the good ship Gallagher has been holed; the question is whether it’s above or below the waterline. Judging by some of the vox pops on RTÉ radio this morning, support for him remains strong in many parts.
pops on RTÉ radio this morning, support for him remains strong in many parts.
It will be late afternoon early evening before the first tallies come through.
Correction: It;s actually Donegal SW where Gallagher is leading. That is Doherty’s constituency.
Heard earlier RTE being reported for their handling of fake tweet. That should be interesting. Losing the committee referendum would be a blow from Govt angle. DubW tallies looked interesting before I went off line.
That’s probably O’Donaill taking back a chunk of what was previously his. Coughlan running cost FF both seats there where only one might have sufficed. Suspect too that the attack on Gallagher backfired badly in some pockets of rural Ireland. Townie mistake.
Mick,
With respect are’nt those comments out of step with your analysis last week. You did a lead thread on The Red C Poll with McGuinness on 13% and you were talking about the possibility of a lost deposit for him.
Therefore could it not just as easily be argued that the attack on Gallagher has gained him an additional 2 or 3%? (if the Red C Poll was Indeed correct?)
There are already plenty of plus points for SF particularly in Dublin. For example the 15.9% polled in Dublin Mid West would put Eoin O’Broin firmly in place for a seat in the next election. He polled 11.8% last time around.
Gay Mitchell is the sandwich between Dana and David Norris. Now there’s an unlikely thought…
Gallagher has phoned Higgins to offer him congratulations on attaining the presidency.
Statement in from Sean Gallagher’s spokesperson:
“In the last hour I’ve called Michael D. Higgins to congratulate him on his performance and his success in this election. He will have my full support as President and I sincerely thank him for a positive campaign. His slogan stated that he would be a President to be proud of and I believe he will be that President.”
I hereby nominate the Irish Times listing for Harry McGee’s piece as Headline of the Day:
The Tweet that was heard all round the world
Very concession speech from Gallagher, in sharp contrast to what was thrown at him during the last days of the campaign.
Brian Boru @ 5:31 pm:
Well, yes — fair enough.
Somehow, though, the “concession” telephone call worries me. It has absolutely no legal effect (as John Kerry discovered, too late, in 2000) Yet it elevates the Irish Presidential Election to the status enjoyed by defeated US candidates every four years.
So, to that extent, it is no more than a bit of ego-building, and a last chance of momentary fame by the defeated candidate(s) for a mainly-symbolic office.
As to “what was thrown at him during the last days of the campaign”, this was politics — arguably the first really political presidential election we’ve had since Dev just barely elbowed out Tom O’Higgins. And politics is a down-and-dirty business. So … what was that thing about “heat” and “kitchen”?
On the matter of “concession”, I see that Hoover sent FDR a telegram (9 Nov 1932) “conceding the national election”. Knowing there are so many experts in Sluggerdom, was this when the tradition began? Are there earlier recorded examples?
Yes Malcolm but I don’t recall very much heat going in Higgins’ direction. Vincent Browne ironically was the only journalist to field tough questions to him such as on the tax-amnesty his govt introduced in 1993. The way I look at it is that the Labour-friendly media decided Higgins should be president and proceeded to shred the reputations of the other candidates. The citing by Pat Kenny of what we now know was a fake ‘Sinn Fein’ twitter page as SF announcing they would reveal the man making the allegations the next day on Frontline was a new low in Irish political journalism. The bias evident in the studio audience which cheered his opponents and booed and jeered him even before this issue came up is further evidence Gallagher was stitched-up.
Not entirely true. The indo was clearly rooting for Gallagher right up until the wheels came off. They did try to go after Higgins on Palestine, but failed to get any traction.
“the people seem to have opted for something dull and unexciting”
That is no bad thing in this job, is it? It is possible to appear somewhat dull and unexciting yet also be a dam good politician, Clem Attlee comes to mind. Carefully crafted media friendly politician have been a dam nuisance in recent decades, Bush, Bertie, Silvio Berlusconi and the war criminal Blair spring to mind and all four have proved disastrous.
Brian Boru nailed it above. This was a partisan media deciding the result of an election. They became utterly hysterical once they realised that Gallagher’s election would work counter to their campaign to demonise FF.
A public that might elect Gallaggher is a public that might redeem FF and a public that might regard the governance of Ireland’s monetary system by the EU as being at least partly responsible for the near collapse of that monetary system, and that is counter to the media campaign to ignore the role of EU government in the collapse and blame the collapse entirely on domestic government instead.
Alias @ 6:56 pm:
Once again, fair enough.
Except …
If there were a “media”candidate, it was surely was Gallagher. Of whom the most concise description is “Up like a rocket; and down like the stick”.
Beyond that, are we really, really convinced that a small cadre in Dublin 4 and environs can manipulate “the plain people of Ireland”?
Or, as I used frequently to be told: “Catch yerself on”.
Run that by me again, Alias, there must be some interference somewhere, I could have sworn you wrote:
“A public that might elect Gallaggher is a public that might redeem FF and a public that might regard the governance of Ireland’s monetary system by the EU as being at least partly responsible for the near collapse of that monetary system, and that is counter to the media campaign to ignore the role of EU government in the collapse and blame the collapse entirely on domestic government instead.”
but that is just too silly for words so I assume gremlins are to blame.
Actually Malcolm the answer to your question is “Yes” if they control almost all the broadcast and print media. That’s why in totalitarian regimes the media is subject to strict censorship;