From one own goal to another

TOO scared to run a candidate for the presidency, Micheál Martin is left looking like a politician on the run from the people.

Fianna Fáil’s self-flagellating over whether or not to make a bid for the Áras not only descended into farce but was allowed to become a slow-motion communications car crash in the process.

The sudden smashing apart of British imperial power in the 1950s was branded “managed decline”; the collapse of the once all-dominant Fianna Fáil over the past year would be better dubbed “mismanaged decline”.

Now it is so sickly and self-loathing it has surrendered any aspiration to attain the highest office in the land — or even be seen trying to do so. Observers are left wondering what is the point of a political party that’s now too timid to even bother fighting elections.

This latest embarrassment follows on from the worst defeat the party has suffered, in-fighting over Mr Martin’s failed attempt to ensure 10 of his handpicked candidates got into the Seanad and three ex-ministers taking lucrative severance payments that the leader pledged in February would be waived.

But despite these self-inflicted setbacks there is no appetite in a party still shell-shocked from the battering handed out to it by voters to ditch Martin.

It is a rich irony that Enda Kenny is secure because of the poverty of opposition he faces from Fianna Fáil while Mr Martin is safe — for now — due to the poverty of opposition he faces within Fianna Fáil.

Mr Martin defends his position by insisting he is engaging in “new” politics, doing things differently than before. But his condescending assertion that voters “understand simple things” smacks of the old-style arrogance that did so much to damn Fianna Fáil.

Mr Martin’s default mode of attacking the interviewer when questioned closely is also both boorish and counter-productive as it just makes him sound defensive and not quite on top of things.

He says he took a “strategic” decision to keep the party out of the presidential race, but, in reality, he allowed himself to be buffeted by events after an ill-judged attempt to chase after a celebrity candidate with the breathlessness of a paparazzo.

While there is an argument for not wanting to pump up to €750,000 of the party’s drained resources into a campaign it cannot win, the way Mr Martin handled the situation has caused alarm and anger among some colleagues.

To so publicly offer his party’s support to Mr Byrne, while Fianna Fáil was still supposedly deciding whether to enter the race, smacked of high-handedness and low emotional intelligence.

That Byrne kept him twisting in the wind before delivering a humiliating rebuff compounded the error and saw popular Munster MEP Brian Crowley — who would have delivered the party at least a respectable showing in October — to exit the field.

Mr Martin remains safe because no one else wants the top job — yet.

Dara Calleary and Michael McGrath are effective Dáil performers, but will wait much closer to the next election before they consider any heave.

But while Mr McGrath may be competent, the message he pushes via his finance brief is the very thing that will always hold Fianna Fáil back.

The party’s only economic policy appears to be to accuse the Coalition Government of copying the policies Fianna Fáil pursued.

And while this may be somewhat correct regarding banking and bondholders, it is also politically dumb as Fianna Fáil will never be able to gain any traction on the key economic battleground as the Coalition becomes increasingly unpopular if it merely trumpets the fact that it can only offer more of the same.

Mr Martin’s sudden turning on Bertie Ahern is also telling, with the Mahon corruption report due to be unleashed some time in the next month.

This is the same Mr Martin who, as one of Bertie’s loyalists, fanned out across the airwaves to stoutly defend the then taoiseach’s extraordinary testimony in the witness box about how the various amounts of cash and currency bundles ended up in his 23 bank accounts while finance minister in the early 1990s.

The fact all that murky recent past of Fianna Fáil will soon be plastered across every front page again during the presidential campaign may also be a reason for the party’s no-show at the hustings.

Mr Martin has delivered the worst of all worlds to the remaining Fianna Fáil faithful with his dismal presidential posturing — no candidate and no hope.

As Mr Martin stumbles from one own goal to another it is becoming increasingly likely that someone else will lead the party into the next general election.