From chicken to cock of the walk: Now Enda, show us the beef

HE started as a chicken and ended up cock of the walk — Enda Kenny finally Taoiseach, how did that happen?

Micheál Martin made all the early running in the campaign, but, unfortunately for him, he was running away from his past and ended up running to stand still.

Gilmore for Taoiseach? Maybe in the Republic of Eamon’s Ego, but not in the Real World.

And the two biggest lies of the campaign have yet to come into play. One is that Fine Gael will have the most open government in history — but the campaign has shown they will try to control everything, but ultimately fail.

Secondly, Mr Martin said Fianna Fáil would be the most constructive opposition ever. They will not, they will savage the new Government at every opportunity with the ferocity of attack dogs, and they will be largely successful at it.

The Obama administration and the Liberal-Tory coalition in Britain learned to their cost, that a new government can only keep blaming the old shower for a maximum of six to eight months. After that, the electorate’s memory fades and the incumbents must take responsibility for the state of the country without the security of the air bag of the old regime’s awfulness.

As Ireland’s crisis is far more dire than that experienced in either the US or Britain, the honeymoon here is likely to be even shorter and will certainly be well over by the time of the December Budget.

So, expect a new heave against Mr Kenny by the summer of 2012 — but people have been writing him off his whole career and look where he is now — Taoiseach after a staggering 36 years in the Dáil.

Though he fluffed the reasons for avoiding the first debate which saw him branded a chicken, the strategy to keep him off the screen until he could be absorbed into a five way, and stopped from a more intensive three-way until the very end when it made little difference — worked well from Fine Gael’s point of view.

Mr Kenny clearly took time to absorb the policy briefs he was given this time, and there was no repetition of his autumnal meltdown when he was roasted live on RTÉ over Fine Gael’s public sector jobs slashing document about which he clearly did not have a clue.

Labour’s campaign also got off to a shaky start with Pat Rabbitte deciding his comparison in the 2007 election of Michael McDowell to a “pre-menopausal Paris Hilton” had done so much to alienate older women voters, he would top it this time by annoying the entire sex, irrespective of age, by accusing Mr Martin of filling his front bench by “running up and down Grafton Street trying to find good looking women”.

Mr Martin, in turn, was determined to get rid of his reputation for indecisiveness by insisting there was no way he was going to give up his lucrative €88,000 ministerial severance pay — before flip-flopping and surrendering the loot after the inevitable public outcry.

Mary Coughlan was disappeared to the far North West, while Cabinet colleague Brian Lenihan just disappeared into his own eccentricities, as in at first flatly denying he had ever said “the worst is over”, then seeming to pretend he had ever denied denying it when his error was pointed out.

The Finance Minister also re-introduced the world “Flapdoodle” to everyday life after warning that is what would come under a Fine Gael government — and if anyone has proved themselves to be an expert on the word’s definition, “talking nonsense”, it is certainly Mr Lenihan.

Michael Noonan was more chilling — and honest — in his choice of vocabulary, insisting things would be “dreadful” for the next few years, but stressing they would have been even worse under FF.

Indeed, Mr Noonan was one of the unexpected star turns of a dull election, laying into Labour claims FG was a high tax party with aplomb.

It is intriguing to note that Mr Noonan, who led the party to almost wipe-out in 2002, did not originally consider Kenny good enough to be on his front bench a decade ago. But the Limerick TD then returned to frontline politics to shore-up Enda after the failed heave last summer and is now credited for Fine Gael’s victory on the electoral economic battle front which will see Kenny installed as Taoiseach.

Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams gave notice that he will be an explosive presence in the next Dáil with a range of extremely violent political analogies.

He compared the social charge tax to “gross terrorism,” and even his nutritional tips contained a certain menace, as in: “The whiter the bread, the quicker you’re dead.”

Mr Martin insisted we should judge him on his four weeks as party leader, and not keep going on about the 14 years he spent as member of what is now generally regarded as the worst government in the history of the state.

As workable political strategies go, it was a bit like Tony Blair saying: “Surely, history will remember me as a peace envoy to the Middle East, nobody’s going to link me with all that Iraq stuff before I got the role, are they?”

Still, “new politics”, sounded nice, but after an initial modest bump, Mr Martin saw FF slump back to the poll levels it enjoyed under the reign of the electorally living dead Brian Cowen.

His demise was finally signalled by the Greens last November when after humiliation upon humiliation they decided to quit, but being dippy-hippies they decided to do it in slow motion, get humiliated by Cowen a few more times, and then pull the plug to ensure we have had the longest campaign in history.

And history is exactly where the Greens end-up at the end of it, pathetically pleading to voters to see them as a “two way bet” — good for government or opposition. But voters have decided the party is a lost cause not up to either role and is probably more suited to a FÁS restart scheme.

Mr Martin fought a frenetic, at times manic, campaign, but the electorate knew he was bluffing with the duff hand left to him by Cowen.

Ironically, the shadow of out-going, broken Taoiseach also hung over Labour’s failed strategy as the party failed to re-order its presidential-style campaign. That agenda could only have been effective against the back narrative of facing such a disastrous incumbent Taoiseach, and just looked egotistical to voters without it. In the end Mr Gilmore was reduced to fighting with last-gasp fear over hope attack ads to try and stop Fine Gael achieving an historic majority and consigning Labour to yet more years of impotent opposition.

In marked comparison, the Fine Gael campaign never seriously misfired once as it propelled Enda to power.

Mr Kenny’s proved he’s no chicken — now we have to see some beef.