Martin jabs as Gilmore fails to land his punches

IT was expected to be the angry taxi driver against the slick telesales guy.

But in the end Micheál Martin was the one raging, while Eamon Gilmore sat back with the air of a disappointed teacher.

Micheál attempted to be alpha male from the off, even claiming ownership of the format in his first answer.

Bent forward in his chair, his right hand often clenched in a fist he trusted into enemy territory — already written off by many as the election also-ran he had little left to lose.

Yet the constant jabbing and jabbering into his opponent’s time may not have gone down well with voters, particularly women.

Perhaps stymied by criticism of his seemingly default persona of instant outrage, Gilmore was far more tempered, not really biting back hard against Martin until the 28th minute.

The Labour leader appeared to play a more subtle game, incorrectly, and deliberately, referring to Martin as “Minister” at least seven times — he clearly knew what he was doing as he later named every 4,955 day the FF leader had served in Cabinet after being finally pulled-up on it.

But at times it was a strangely passive performance from Gilmore as he failed to nail Martin firmly for the blame of the slump and IMF fiasco — before finally unleashing his firepower in the dying moments of the clash.

The entrance to the “spin room” next to the studio was a revolving door of party flunkies coming into to talk up their man, but managing expectations is just as crucial in TV debates as claiming victory and Labour let talk of a Gilmore walk-over run way too high.

TV3 also got very excited about being centre of attention and seemed to think it had suddenly turned into CNN for the evening, imposing a security lock-down with a heavy handedness that suggested it expected Barack Obama and The Queen to be turning-up rather than just plain old Eamon and Micheál.

Gilmore had arrived at the TV studios first, a bag man bringing in a fresh suit and tie for him afterwards.

In a random ballot Eamon got to really sit on the right, but due to the TV angles it looked like he was on the left — what better metaphor could there have been for his expected hookup with the Blueshirts after the general election?

Martin tried to paint his opponent as a flip-flopper. Gilmore, strangely, did not deliver his usual highly emotive firepower about betrayed families and ruined lives until the very end when he accused the Corkman of having a “hard neck” and returned to his Red Baron of Rage blaze.

But Mr Martin would probably take the intended slight as a compliment as in an intriguing tactic since becoming Fianna Fáil leader, he tries to play all his negative cards as positives.

The Health Service Executive must be one of the most reviled institutions in the country, yet he seeks praise for setting it up — using it as a club to try and attack opposition health plans with.

It’s the same with tax — the man at the centre of the biggest taxer administration in history tried to paint Labour as the pay packets enemy — some hard neck indeed after the universal social charge.

In a way, Martin’s style is reminiscent of failed US Republican Tea Party Senate race contender Christine O’Donnell, whose fight for Congress was thrown off course when video tape emerged of her admitting to “dabbling in witchcraft”. She came straight back with an attack ad, saying: “I’m not a witch. I’m nothing you’ve heard. I’m you.”

Micheál’s line would be: “So, people think it was the worst government in the history of the state, it wasn’t. Let’s move on. I’m you, here’s something shinny…”

The absence of Enda Kenny was barely noticed, not even the fabled empty chair TV3 was said to have in store to underline the slight bothered to ask where he was.

If Enda was scared of Vincent Browne he needn’t have been, the anchor failed to control Martin and his repeated calls of: “Eamon, Eamon, Eamon, come back in there…” made it sound as if he was trying to wake the Labour leader up.

It was stated in the programme rules that the moderator would “not criticise or comment on answers” — a written restraining order on Vincent then.

The vinegar was kept well and truly in the bottle for once.

The questions were tame. If Enda was scared, he only had to look back to the US presidential debates of 1988 to see what real political menace is.

After George Bush Snr had successfully painted his Democratic rival Mike Dukakis as a soft on crime liberal, the debate questioner outrageously asked Dukakis that if his wife, Kitty Dukakis, were raped and murdered, would he still oppose the death penalty?

Most strikingly, the vileness of the question caused far less fury in the debate aftermath that Dukakis’s perceived lack of empathy in answering it did — at least nothing like that would ever happen here.

Who won? Was Martin too aggressive, was Gilmore too soft? It depends what you look for in a leader.

But the big question left hanging in the air at the finish was — Enda who?