Irish general election: 25 February 2011

[Хahar 🤔]

I believe rte.ie has a live feed.

[afleitch]

The trouble with STV is that it's a good electoral system for electing witless morons who parade around (often less than honestly) as 'local champions' and get rewarded for it. Of course that happens under fptp as well.

Not always. In Scotland with the move away from FPTP council elections towards larger STV wards many of the 'witless morons' found that their base had been consumed within a much bigger area, they commanded less support and promptly got booted out.

[Verily]

The trouble with STV is that it's a good electoral system for electing witless morons who parade around (often less than honestly) as 'local champions' and get rewarded for it. Of course that happens under fptp as well.

Not always. In Scotland with the move away from FPTP council elections towards larger STV wards many of the 'witless morons' found that their base had been consumed within a much bigger area, they commanded less support and promptly got booted out.

This just means you get witless morons with slightly broader appeal.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The trouble with STV is that it's a good electoral system for electing witless morons who parade around (often less than honestly) as 'local champions' and get rewarded for it. Of course that happens under fptp as well.

Not always. In Scotland with the move away from FPTP council elections towards larger STV wards many of the 'witless morons' found that their base had been consumed within a much bigger area, they commanded less support and promptly got booted out.

This just means you get witless morons with slightly broader appeal.

Though I suppose there was a decent clearance of witless morons in the Highlands.

Wait.

Is that an appropriate use of figurative language?

[Јas]

By the by, first debate was last night - Martin v Gilmore.
Reportedly 410,000 viewers.

The consensus as to the result: Gilmore did fine, but Martin won. I only saw the second half, but somehow Martin managed to keep Gilmore on the back foot for most of that time.

Will be interesting to see whether or not that (and Enda's absence [unfortunately TV3 didn't actually have an empty chair there]) affects the weekend polls.


Also, nominations closed today.

Indications are that candidate figures are as follows:
104 Fine Gael
  75 Fianna Fáil
  68 Labour
  43 Green (1 in every constituency)
  41 Sinn Féin
170 Other

[patrick1]

Also, is Fine Gael really running four candidates (none of them incumbent TDs, in spite of Joe O'Reilly being in boldface) in Cavan-Monaghan and Galway West?  They might well win four in Mayo and I guess a "sweeper" in Galway East makes sense (four in Laoighis Offaly is pushing it, as their percentage there in 2007 was less than in Cavan-Monaghan, but with Fianna Fáil being the only other game in town there it may not be crazy), but with a viable opponent "3rd party" in Cavan-Monaghan (SF) and Galway West (Labour), and a viable incumbent independent TD (Noel Grealish) in the latter, why would they run four candidates when winning three seats will be tall order?

Running 4 in C-M is because they are chasing 3 seats (a quite realistic aim), but felt they had to run 2 from each county (same reasoning in Laois-Offaly). Humphreys and O'Reilly are to be favoured, I presume. I'd suggest Conlon will be closer than McVittie - Margaret Conlon's transfers (for surely she shall falter, rather than Smith) will likely stay in Monaghan thus preferring Humphreys and Conlon.

While quite a few tout C-M as an opportunity for a second SF seat, I don't see it happening. It looks like Ó Caoláin only allowed a weak second candidate. I can't see there being sufficient Cavan SF votes to get her really into contention - but I guess SF votes will transfer between the counties better than most other parties will manage, so who knows.

Paddypower and some commentators are calling for another SF pickup with Kathryn Reilly.
 I presume this would make her the baby of the dail.  Funny contrast seeing a cute, mousey 22 year old share the podium with the ex-provos.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0204/1224288986692.html
http://www.newstalk.ie/2011/news/review-of-cavan-monaghan-constituency-by-adrian-kavanagh/

[minionofmidas]

When you call a female politician "cute", Patrick, it is customary to include a picture.



What would be a standard anglicized spelling of Ó Caoláin? I understand that, spelling aside, he shares a first name with kevinstat.

[Хahar 🤔]

I haven't checked, but my guess would be "Collins".

EDIT: Wikipedia tells us that Michael Collins' name in Irish was Míceál Ó Coileáin.

[patrick1]

When you call a female politician "cute", Patrick, it is customary to include a picture.



What would be a standard anglicized spelling of Ó Caoláin? I understand that, spelling aside, he shares a first name with kevinstat.

Haha. Well I will give you video. Skip to :30 mark if you dont like the propaganda.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkGpka_6FlA

Regarding your second question I am not sure. The anglicization always throws me for a loop- my own Irish language surname is rendered numerous ways into English. The spelling in County Cork bears very little resemblance to my own.

[Kevinstat]

What would be a standard anglicized spelling of Ó Caoláin? I understand that, spelling aside, he shares a first name with kevinstat.

Caoimhghín (Ó Caoláin's first name) is pronounced "Kevin"?  I thought Kevin was an Irish name.

[Хahar 🤔]

What would be a standard anglicized spelling of Ó Caoláin? I understand that, spelling aside, he shares a first name with kevinstat.

Caoimhghín (Ó Caoláin's first name) is pronounced "Kevin"?  I thought Kevin was an Irish name.

It's the anglicization of said Irish name. The letter "v" isn't Irish (which is why Éamon Ó Cuív's name looks so strange).

[Јas]

Also, is Fine Gael really running four candidates (none of them incumbent TDs, in spite of Joe O'Reilly being in boldface) in Cavan-Monaghan and Galway West?  They might well win four in Mayo and I guess a "sweeper" in Galway East makes sense (four in Laoighis Offaly is pushing it, as their percentage there in 2007 was less than in Cavan-Monaghan, but with Fianna Fáil being the only other game in town there it may not be crazy), but with a viable opponent "3rd party" in Cavan-Monaghan (SF) and Galway West (Labour), and a viable incumbent independent TD (Noel Grealish) in the latter, why would they run four candidates when winning three seats will be tall order?

Running 4 in C-M is because they are chasing 3 seats (a quite realistic aim), but felt they had to run 2 from each county (same reasoning in Laois-Offaly). Humphreys and O'Reilly are to be favoured, I presume. I'd suggest Conlon will be closer than McVittie - Margaret Conlon's transfers (for surely she shall falter, rather than Smith) will likely stay in Monaghan thus preferring Humphreys and Conlon.

While quite a few tout C-M as an opportunity for a second SF seat, I don't see it happening. It looks like Ó Caoláin only allowed a weak second candidate. I can't see there being sufficient Cavan SF votes to get her really into contention - but I guess SF votes will transfer between the counties better than most other parties will manage, so who knows.

Paddypower and some commentators are calling for another SF pickup with Kathryn Reilly.
 I presume this would make her the baby of the dail.  Funny contrast seeing a cute, mousey 22 year old share the podium with the ex-provos.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0204/1224288986692.html
http://www.newstalk.ie/2011/news/review-of-cavan-monaghan-constituency-by-adrian-kavanagh/

Yeah, as I say I suspect most will have this down as a SF pick-up and they may be right. I'll reserve the right to change my mind later. I'm surprised PaddyPower regard a 3rd FG seat as so unlikely.

I'll hopefully get around to a full constituency prediction over the campaign.

[Јas]

Some fun facts, which are all likely to need updating after this election:

1. Since 1932, the lowest vote FF have ever picked up in a general election was in 1992, when they received 39.1% of the vote.

2. The lowest number of seats FF have achieved was in 1954 when 65 FF TDs were returned.

3. Since 1927, FF have won at least one seat in every constituency in the country in every general election.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The last two elections saw major undetected shifts in the last two weeks of the campaign (the return to the PDs in 2002 probably due to the "no single party government" campaign and the move away from the Greens and SFs towards Fianna Fail and the squeezing of the non-big two parties in 2007). I suspect we could see such an event occuring again perhaps a move towards independents and away from Labour and SF is what I´ll go with. Perhaps FG too especially if the campaign doesn´t go well for them.

Must do a consituency prediction before the 25th.

[Јas]

Numbers from tomorrow's, Sunday Business Post commissioned, RedC poll are out.
Results below with the other recent comparitors...

	13 Feb	6 Feb	3 Feb	2 Feb	2 Feb	2007
	RedC	RedC	I-MRBI	RedC	MBL	Election
Fine Gael	38	35	33	37	30	27
Labour	20	22	24	19	24	10
Fianna Fáil	15	17	15	18	16	42
Sinn Féin	10	13	12	12	13	7
Green	3	2	1	3	1	5
Ind/Other	14	11	15	11	15	9

FG, Ind/Other (and Green) gains at everyone else's expense.
FG back to record heights.
Labour show no sign of regaining the momentum they lost a few months ago.
FF leadership change yet to evidently pay-off in these polls.

[Insula Dei]

The SF bump seems to be over?

Even if seeing FF getting their due will be nice, I must confess to feeling disappointed with the Republic of Ireland. Are you really going to elect Enda Kenny Ireland?

[Јas]

The SF bump seems to be over?

Possibly. Possibly not.
More data required before calling that I think.

Even if seeing FF getting their due will be nice, I must confess to feeling disappointed with the Republic of Ireland. Are you really going to elect Enda Kenny Ireland?

Well, Mayo will.
If FG remain at around the 38% level in polls, then talk will be sustained about the possibility of FG governing alone, or with the support of agreeable independents. (Which no doubt Labour will then use as a scare tactic, much as the PDs did effectively back in 2002 with FF.)

Harry McGee's blog this morning made a number of interesting points, including:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Јas]

Might get traction, might not - but either way, one was surprised to hear that this morning Micheál Martin, recent Minister for Foreign Affairs no less, made comments within which he attempted to adopt a Chinese accent to convey a message he apparantly repeatedly picked up on a visit to China - "You Irish - very good at software".
Audio link

[Filuwaúrdjan]

[Јas]

WIN

[minionofmidas]

His Chinese accent is almost as faded and barely perceptible as his Irish accent. Can't they maybe get Jackie Healy-Rae to repeat the line for an audio clip?

[patrick1]

The SF bump seems to be over?

Possibly. Possibly not.
More data required before calling that I think.

Yeah, things seem a little muddy and I'm not well versed  in Irish polling to recognize a trend or simple MoE blips. The Cork North Central poll had SF doing well though and FF getting lambasted.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0214/breaking4.html

[Oakvale]

[/thread]

[Јas]

It's good... but my favourite pic from yesterday was of Gormley at the Unitarian Church...

[Antonio the Sixth]

So Fine Gael is leading the polls and Epic Fail could remain the second party ? Ireland really depresses me...