It’s official RTÉ are running for the Presidency

WHAT IS IT with the Irish news media and the coming election for President of Ireland? The nomination period hasn’t even begun yet in past weeks it has been daily headline news, with RTÉ and The Irish Times leading the charge.
In 1990, Mary Robinson was elected as the Labour/Democratic Left candidate in a clever year-long campaign that succeeded partially due a deliberate strategy of keeping the candidate out of Dublin and the so-called ‘national’ media missed entirely the momentum building up behind her.
This time around, aspiring contenders have all decided to shun public meetings or the community centre tour favoured by Robinson.
Why bother taking to the road when you have the reach of RTÉ behind you? Don’t worry, it won’t be a hard or testing interview; the state broadcaster is only too willing to line up some nice comfort slots but beware — they might set Joe Duffy and his Liveline posse on you (as David Norris and Mary Davis have found).
It is all just part of ‘keeping it sort of real’. You wouldn’t want anyone to think that there was bias in the Montrose media machine, would you?
Up first for the softly-softly approach was Pat Cox back on April 2nd, when he got a free half-hour on the RTÉ Radio Saturday flagship Marian Finucane Show (“the second most popular radio programme in Ireland and the highest-rating weekend show”, RTÉ boasts). Pat got to tell us all his vision . . . blah, blah, blah . . . without any substantial interventions from Marian. Funnily, he didn’t mention the Presidency at all.
Next was Dragon’s Den ‘tough’ guy and Fianna Fail supporter Seán Gallagher who got the Late Late Show gig with Tubbers to announce his candidacy on May 6th. In the USA, appearances on talk shows are a must-do for aspiring presidential candidates so get ready for more hopefuls popping up on Saturday Night with Miriam which began its six-week summer run on June 11th.
As the list of contenders for the October election is growing, so too is the list of those not going to run, which is also, bizarrely, a news item. In this category is Miriam O’Callaghan herself, who has been saying ‘no thanks’ since last summer, and is still repeating the ‘not this time’ line in recent weeks.
Also in the ‘not running’ camp is John Bruton, former GAA president and current MEP Seán Kelly, Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney, Fianna Fáil Senator Mary White and (for now) Fine Gael MEP Mairead McGuinness. In the case of former RTÉ presenter McGuinness it seems that the news media won’t take ‘no’ for an answer and are continually linking her with the Fine Gael nomination.
On June 8th, Fionnan Sheahan of The Irish Independent reported that Pat Cox (who is only joining Fine Gael as you read this to get the Fine Gael party’s nomination and the Blueshirt organisation behind him) would have to beat MEPs Gay Mitchell and Mairead McGuinness to get that Fine Gael nomination — even thoughMcGuinness has not officially declared at the time of writing this.
Mitchell had previously said he wouldn’t run but with the refusal of John Bruton to don the blue bib he is now in the race.
In the Labour Party camp, Michael D Higgins and Fergus Finlay must be despairing at declaring their intentions so early as neither have had the soft couch treatment at RTÉ.
Someone who has got soft and tough love at RTÉ was Kathleen O’Meara. On May 30th, O’Meara got a free run on the normally hard-biting Morning Ireland to announce her candidacy for the Labour Party nomination. (Labour is holding its selection convention on June 19th.)
O’Meara was calling for a ‘New Proclamation in 2016’ and pledging to bring a “new style of leadership”, which sounds not unlike the pledges of Robinson and McAleese in their time.
O’Meara had barely finished counting up the free exposure of Morning Ireland when Liveline popped up to talk about the Landmark Forum, which O’Meara had previously promoted and which was reported in The Sunday Tribune in 2005 as being designated “cult like” by the French Government. Phoenix magazine in May also raised the Landmark connection with O’Meara.
The previous day, Liveline had taken David Norris through the mill, prompted by a call from retired journalist Helen Lucy Burke, and one wonders what now are his chances of securing a nomination after an Irish Times editorial on June 1st declared that Norris had in the past “made unwise and ambiguous statements about paedophilia and incest”.
The head of the Special Olympics in Ireland, Mary Davis, has also entered the contest. Mary will be a “practical” president, apparently. Not sure what that means, though.
Another ‘independent’ candidate is US-based Irish Voice publisher and Daily Star columnist Niall O’Dowd. He declared in early June on RTÉ’s News at One. He had been encouraged to do so by the “Irish-American community”.
The Sunday Independent, to be fair to them, have been playing the election card longest and have put questions about candidates on their Quantum Research pseudo polls since last summer. In September 2010, Norris was polling 28% in the Quantum thingy and was 41% in the most recents in May. It is not an accurate or statistically valid survey though.
For anyone interested in left-wing candidates the fare is sparse at present. So come polling day we might have to resort to the Dustin vote in 1990. For now, I will be voting for Jedward. The age qualification barrier? Their combined ages are 36, just over the 35-year-old bar (come on, let’s be practical). And they could double up on Presidential engagements. And if they were good enough for Barack Obama and Lizzie, they are good enough for me. OMG!