Mick Clifford: Fine Gael already showing signs of continuing their awful election habit
Heather Humphreys is a serious candidate who will be in the reckoning for a presidential nomination one way or the other when the votes are being counted. File photo: Leon Farrell / © RollingNews.ie
At the risk of disturbing fresh sporting wounds, it is worth repeating the mantra right now that there is no such thing as a sure thing.
It is also a truism that heightened expectation over a prolonged period is a very dangerous condition. Somebody should maybe tip off the boys and girls in Fine Gael about fate’s tendency to act the maggot with those thus afflicted.
The spectre over the last 48 hours of the coronation of Heather Humphreys as the party’s presidential candidate has been a sight to behold. Nominations opened around about sunrise on Tuesday. MEP Sean Kelly scrubbed up early to tell that he was giving it a shot.
Within an hour Ms Humphreys announced her candidacy on local radio. Before the nation had digested its lunch, Heather was blazing ahead. By the time the sun went down she was all but selected as the candidate.
On Wednesday morning things got a little silly. Neale Richmond posted on social media the nomination paper he was signing for Humphreys. Apart from displaying a cavalier attitude to the electoral process, the reason for doing so was unclear. Hopefully he wasn’t trying to get down with the kids.
The rush to declare for Ms Humphreys has been compared to the blitzkreig performed by Leo Varadkar when he ran for leader of the party in 2017. The comparisons are valid, but somebody forgot that this is a completely different contest.
Leo and his consigliori Eoghan Murphy were determined to blow Simon Coveney out of the water before the Cork man could raise a sail. Their audience was Fine Gael elected reps and members. They succeeded with a degree of professionalism that is often absent when the party contests national elections.
The audience for the presidential nomination should be totally different. This internal election is not about advancing, or hopping on the back of, an individual’s career.
It is about presenting the candidate most likely to appeal to the great unwashed beyond the Fine Gael heartlands. And this is how they go about it?
If Sean Kelly was a crank, or a hopeless case, or even if he persisted in eating his dinner in the middle of the day in modern Ireland, the blitzkreig might make sense. If he was such a crank, which he most certainly is not, there might be method to the madness.
Instead, he is an assiduous vote getter with national reach through his involvement in the GAA, where he has served as president of the association. Since first being elected to the European Parliament in 2009 he has increased his vote at every election. Last year he garnered 122,777 to be the first elected MEP in Ireland South.
He is an amiable chap whose only possible bugbear might be connecting in the leafier suburbs of Dublin. But even there the reach of the GAA would stand to him. Who knows whether he would get elected but he would give it as good a shot as any of the other prospective candidates.
So why attempt to eliminate him before he gets going as if he was a dangerous political opponent? Presumably, the party brass concluded that Heather was the greatest thing since, well, young Leo Varadkar, and best to begin the coronation early so the great unwashed get onside.
Apart from anything else, what advantage is it to Ms Humphreys in the election proper to chase Kelly back to the deep south before there is even a nomination vote?
Fine Gael could have had a few weeks of hustings, advertising their brand, promoting their values, while avoiding, for the greater part, difficult questions. They could have progressed with a mutual admiration contest. They could have had it all in the throes of the silly season. Instead, they reverted to form, making a meal of things.
Already the party is showing signs of emulating an awful record in elections. The last time they had a decent outing was 2011, when it would have been all but impossible to foul up. This time the task is more difficult than even the party brass appears to acknowledge.
The presidential election is something of a second order vote. Not a lot is really at stake for the voters. And in the current febrile global political environment, a party that has been in power for the last 14 years is asking voters to give them another bauble to show just how happy everybody is with how the country has been run.
Ms Humphreys is a serious candidate who will be in the reckoning one way or the other when the votes are being counted. She will, however, need somebody to crack a few whips, apply some election smarts, because if their sloppiness this week is attributable to a belief that she is a sure thing, they’re already in trouble.
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