No vote of confidence in limited polls and politicians who pander to people

But leadership is not about giving things to people. That’s patronage. Peonage. That’s bread and circuses.

BERTIE may have been visiting his new grandsons, but on Saturday afternoon most Fianna Fáil ministers were out on the stump when the news began to seep through about the two opinion polls. Not good.

It came as a surprise, because what was being encountered on the canvass didn’t match what was revealed by either Red C or IMS. Fianna Fáil canvassers weren’t meeting overt hostility. They weren’t even meeting that deadly politeness where a voter passively accepts a proffered leaflet with a smile that doesn’t quite reach their eyes.

The majority of responses were warmly positive.

Of course, a few people used the canvassers’ visit to give out yards about something. But, as any experienced canvasser will tell you, being given out to by a voter isn’t always bad. Mewling and puking about a specific problem implies an ongoing relationship. You don’t mewl and puke in detail if you plan to take your business somewhere else. You do it to improve the service you’re getting from the present lot. Or so the theory goes.

While the reaction to canvassers had left them unprepared for the downturn, Fianna Fáil concentrated on trying to wipe the smile off Enda Kenny’s face, use the latest results to whip their candidates into ever more energetic work on the ground, and assure commentators that it’d be very dangerous to extrapolate from a few old figures in an opinion poll to major losses in seat numbers.

Meanwhile, buried in the data was the fact that the number of “Don’t Knows” or undecideds has gone up. In the Red C poll published in the Sunday Business Post, 20% of those questioned fit into this category.

Now, isn’t that interesting? One-in-five people who — according to the criteria operated by Red C — are actually likely to vote either haven’t made up their mind who they’re voting for or aren’t telling.

Maybe they’re not telling because they don’t like the questions they’re being asked. Maybe the one in five has copped on to the fact that none of the so-called opinion polls really seek out opinions. This kind of research is limited to relative ratings.

Who’s better than who? Which leader do you favour? Or they ask questions like: Should the Government resist the nurses’ demands?

Because they don’t allow people to expatiate on their choices, we end up with unexplained syndromes like the Bertie Paradox. The Bertie Paradox upends logic. Logic says that if someone is found to be ropy in their finances, to the extent of keeping a lot of dosh in the hot press during a period when they were Minister for Finance, that someone would be less popular when this is revealed. Bertie Ahern is the exception. He has a sort of Paddy-the-Plasterer version of the Midas touch: toss a brick at him, and the moment it connects it turns to solid gold.

By virtue of their binary yes/no questions, the newspaper polls divine choices rather than opinions. Which is why I suspect the one-in-five who gets insultingly categorised as a “Don’t Know” may in fact be a rugged individual with strong self-esteem who refuses to be confined to answering a questionnaire which precludes them from giving any real opinion.

They may be willing to plead ignorance or indecision rather than fit obediently into a statistical system.

Or, following several weeks where one party after another promised to remove or reduce stamp duty, reduce taxes and give the electorate all manner of goodies, they may be questioning the definition of leadership on which they’re supposed to rate the current contenders.

That definition is grievously impoverished. At this stage, if you’re presentable, reasonably lucid and prepared to promise bundles of new gardaí to improve the quality of everybody’s life, that will more or less do. But leadership is not about giving things to people. That’s patronage. Peonage. That’s bread and circuses.

LEADERSHIP is about leading people to behave differently. To become more than they are. To deliver. To take on challenges in the interests not of themselves, but of others.

Kennedy had it down pat. It’s not about asking what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. It’s about going to the moon and doing other things “not because they are easy, but because they are hard…”.

Most of what is currently proffered is a leadership of pandering to the people. Not just here, but in America, too. What else is Hillary Clinton’s guff about starting a conversation with the American people but a way of finding out what they want so she can give it to them? Leadership by market research, by focus group, does precisely that. It’s relationship marketing and no more. It never seeks to demand and challenge, only to pacify and pay off.

I’m sick of it. Sick, sore and tired of it. Because it diminishes all of us. It turns us into whinging consumers living in (and worshipping) an economy, rather than citizens of a great nation.

I would love to hear a political leader admit that we’re heading into tough times and that we’re going to have less money in our pockets, not more. I would love to hear a political leader demanding something of us, instead of hosing us down with our own money.

In this context, John O’Donoghue last week said something interesting.

“A nation that has forgotten the quality of courage that in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist on it in today’s leaders.”

He’s right. We never seek courage from political leaders and so we get a “whatever you’re having yourself” kind of leadership, where research identifies the safely popular direction. (“You can see I’m their leader — I’m right behind them.”)

Courage is the capacity to do what is unpopular because it’s right. Whether you agree or disagree with the policies, Micheál Martin (on the smoking ban) and Mary Harney (with the consultants) have courage. Whether you agree or disagree with Green policies, so does Trevor Sargent, who lives his beliefs.

Never mind the “Nanny State”. Political leadership increasingly veers towards the creation of the “Mammy State” where the main promise is that those in power will take care of you.

You’ll spend your life in a form-filling bureaucracy, but they’ll ensure there are regulations and regulators to make sure your cardie gets buttoned right to the top.

I don’t want to be Mammied. I want to be part of a country that gets international attention for more than Riverdance and being rich. I want to be part of a country where Foreign Affairs doesn’t just address issues created by other nations, but rigorously addresses issues thrown up by the almost equal power of the multinational corporations. That defines “best practice”, rather than slavishly seeking to match it. That becomes the world leader in combating climate change or ending hunger.

This election should be about pride and passion, beliefs and belonging. Instead, it’s about tax concessions and property values.

Small wonder there are so many “Don’t Knows”.