Martin seeks out core Fianna Fáilers to reach elusive 20%

FIANNA FÁIL is running a different election to every other party.

It is not trying to convince the country. At the moment it is just seeking to woo back its own.

Micheál Martin’s itinerary since becoming leader has epitomised its agenda.

And Mary Hanafin summed it up perfectly in the deputy leaders’ debate.

“We are finding Fianna Fáil voters are saying that they are not sure if they will vote for Fianna Fáil this time.

“They are the ones we are really reaching out to and saying we are still the party of the same values that we are very anxious, Micheál Martin and myself, as leader and deputy leader, to regroup that party and to rebuild it,” Ms Hanafin said.

Since the campaign began, Mr Martin’s journey around the country has been devoted to meeting with, and listening to, party organisers.

He has spoken to cumann meetings, selection conventions, party rallies and canvassing events.

The schedule plotted for him has not avoided public places but has not sought them out either. Instead his work has been inside the fortress boosting morale rather than looking to rampage in the open fields.

He has made far fewer stops on his travels than Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, despite travelling an almost identical distance, 19 compared with 33 at the end of last week.

Despite the polls, the party believes that approximately one quarter of the electorate is essentially Fianna Fáil, but many need an excuse to forgive the mess it made of itself.

If the party can get above the 20% threshold, it should be able to return deputies in all the key three-seat constituencies and competitive four-seaters.

In 2007, any party that got more than 20% in three-seat constituencies won at least one seat while only five candidates who got below this figure, two of them independents, scraped in on transfers.

This has made the mission of Micheál Martin a very different one to his predecessors.

When the then taoiseach Bertie Ahern visited Claremorris, Co Mayo, in 2007, he arrived with the fanfare of a helicopter.

He surprised local school children who cheered for him at the swimming pool. He hung around with railway workers. He canvassed shoppers.

After a walkaround, he joined supporters at the Dalton Inn.

Micheál Martin went into the same Dalton Inn last Wednesday.

He arrived to the door by car. He was well received by dozens of supporters and went straight upstairs to address a cumann meeting. Here he reminded its members of what Fianna Fáil stood for.

Afterwards he quickly walked to the nearby SuperValu shopping centre, which was nearly empty. A mother of a sick child spoke to him about her problems with Temple Street Children’s Hospital. There was nobody but the shop workers to canvass.

Outside the door he was ferried by car to Tesco on the outskirts of town. Then he left Claremorris.

Two different leaders. Two different missions. Two different times.

In 2007 in Mayo, the party was running three candidates and Beverly Flynn was still there as an independent.

This time around just two hopefuls are being put out for Mayo’s Fianna Fáil family. Yet before Mr Martin arrived at the Dalton Inn the supporters of the second candidate, Lisa Chambers, openly conceded that her best outcome would be to raise her profile for future elections.

Mr Martin’s message to his grassroots has been clear — Fianna Fáil has been the “vehicle of opportunity” and was responsible for a lot of good before the economic crash.

Mr Martin began his mutiny against Brian Cowen over Christmas when, in two newspaper interviews, he articulated the need to revamp and reorganise the Fianna Fáil organisation.

The party has won a seat in every constituency since it was formed. This has built up an institutional network of supporters and canvassers.

Mr Martin’s journey so far has been to convince the soldiers of destiny about the promise of the Fianna Fáil party rather than the problems.

It appears to have given up on returning to the same doors as four years ago.

In the last election, the commuter belt delivered spectacularly for Mr Ahern. This was achieved in part because of the populist relaxation of stamp duty, a €1,000 childcare bonus and the delivery of an improved infrastructure network into Dublin-based jobs.

In the first two weeks of the campaign Mr Martin has not returned to these voters.

In a visit to Dunboyne he drove straight into an old schoolhouse filled with 75 supporters and an ideas group formed by retiring TD, Mary Wallace.

He drove immediately to Kells where dismal weather spoiled hope of a walkabout. Instead he spent an hour with a rally for his deputy Thomas Byrne.

And then he kept moving to a similar internal event in Monaghan.

A night earlier, his visit to the key constituency of Limerick just took in a rally for Willie O’Dea and Peter Power.

However, while Mr Ahern had the luxury of taking its core 20% for granted, opinion polls suggest his successor cannot.

Mr Martin knows there are parts of its base which may never come back. But it needs at least 20% to stay loyal.

Mr Martin has this week and next to reach out to the wider population. But so far his focus almost exclusively centred on appealing to those who in elections past would have fought for the party without being asked.