When it comes down to it, no one’s smaller than Ahern

SO, are you going to vote for the little guy, or the even littler guy?

As 5ft 4in-tall Michael D Higgins squares up to the 5ft 7in frame of Sean Gallagher in a final showdown for the Áras, it might seem height-ist to draw attention to their stature.

But a new study published in the Social Science Quarterly has found that physical measurements are a key factor in attracting our votes.

In a genetic throwback to caveman times, electors see tall people as more acceptable in leadership roles because of the lingering DNA memory of tribal chiefs who used their imposing make-up to dominate opposing warrior kings.

The findings are the result of work undertaken by Dr Gregg Murray at Texas Tech University, who explains: “Our ancestors lived in groups that were constantly engaged in conflicts that were resolved through physical violence. If you are in a group and the enemy hordes are coming over the hill, what you want them to see is the big person out front so they know they face a tough battle.”

Now, this seems to be where Irish voters diverge from the thesis, as height, coupled with experience of conflict issues, would surely favour Sinn Féin’s 6ft standard bearer Martin McGuinness who looks down on the rest of the presidential field.

Yet he is lying a distant third. But maybe there are other things at play in his lack of popularity, such as referring to the Irish Republic as “down here” while on the stump, and all that messy, and still very murky, business involving the IRA.

Labour has failed to respond to queries from this column about the exact height of Mr Higgins — sometimes known as the “Big D” — which makes us wonder what have they got to hide?

As the self-styled party of equality surely Labour should see his diminutive standing as a badge of honour, not something to stuff under the carpet.

Indeed, embracing the issue could prove a boon as when Trish Gallagher revealed that if her husband was elected president the “pitter patter” of tiny feet might be heard in the Áras as she was hoping to start a family soon — Twitter was soon alive with pro-Labour comment that the “pitter patter” of Michael D’s tiny feet would also be a pleasant sound in the Áras if he got the top job.

And if the Big D did triumph he would not even be Europe’s shortest head of state. He would share that distinction with Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev — but then as Medvedev is little more than a puppet on the string of the not particularly tall 5ft 7in Vladimir Putin, maybe that is not a comparison to relish.

But still, the US “presidential height index” finds that the taller of the Republican and Democrat candidates emerged victorious in 58% of US presidential elections between 1789 and 2008 — which could be bad news for an already unpopular Barack Obama, who at 6ft 1in is an inch shorter than the likely Republican challenger next year, Mitt Romney.

When Prof Murray asked 467 students at US universities to describe and draw their “ideal national leader” alongside a “typical citizen”, nearly two-thirds of participants depicted leaders who were 12% taller than their average voter.

“Some traits and instincts that may have been acquired through evolution continue to manifest themselves in modern life, seemingly irrationally. A near universal fear of snakes and a preference for unhealthy fatty foods likely evolved from when snakes were a common threat and caloric intake was uncertain. We believe similar traits exist in politics,” he points out.

But height isn’t everything as 5ft 6in-tall Winston Churchill would have told you regarding his mammoth global struggle with Adolf Hitler, 5ft 8in.

Higgins and Gallagher may be below the Irish average height of 5ft 9in, making them officially “short”, but they could never be as small as one 5ft 11in person going by the name of Bertie Ahern.

In an interview with DCU FM, which was delusional even by Ahern’s recent standards, the blame-everyone-but-me ex-taoiseach muses it is Fianna Fáil’s fault he is not currently riding high in the presidential race and packing his bag for the Park.

“I think if the party popularity didn’t go south, I mean I still would have done alright,” he announced seemingly unaware he and his slapstick successor Brian Cowen are the very people who made Fianna Fáil the stinking wreck it is today.

But don’t try blaming Bertie for the economic collapse and subsequent surrender of national sovereignty to the troika by Fianna Fáil.

He insists there is “not a lot” he would have done differently — and anyway it was all the fault of journalists.

It is ‘the Press’ that should be turned over for allowing the crash to happen, Bertie insists.

“There should be an investigation into it. [The media] should have been following the economy from August 2007, but they weren’t, they were following me. I think a lot of these guys really should have looked at themselves. The government were following the economy but the media weren’t. It was a very poor job by the media really. They were shown to be incompetent and that was the trouble — everything was on me,” he said.

Bertie is clearly — desperately — trying to position himself ahead of the looming barrage from the Mahon corruption probe report, which is set to smash onto the political scene as soon as the race for the Áras is over.

You must remember the Mahon corruption probe? All that unpleasantness in the witness box as a squirming Ahern attempted to explain away all that cash flowing into his 23 bank accounts while he was finance minister in the early 1990s? The money amounted to two-and-a-half times his known income in one 12-month period under investigation.

And who could fail to be convinced by explanations for various amounts of money arriving in his bank accounts, which could be summed-up as: “I won it on the gee-gees,” “These men I didn’t really know made me take it in Manchester,” and “It was from two spontaneous dig-outs a year apart from two separate sets of friends who had no knowledge of each other but wanted to give the finance minister enough for a deposit on a little house.”

Bertie, once considered the political giant of the age, is now revealed as a political pygmy whose continued attempts to wrap himself in self-pity just make the public really dislike him that little bit more.

As Prof Murray pointed out, fear of snakes is embedded in our collective memory — and few politicians in recent times have been as slippery as Bertie.