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Celebrity Your a TD Continues with Frank McNamara Running in Dublin South Central
Read more about: Dublin South Central, Progressive Democrats
This morning the Progressive Democrats added to their cache of high-profile candidates with the announcement that Frank McNamara is to contest the election for them in Dublin South Central. This means the party is running two candidates in the five seater, with local activist Ben Doyle on the ticket also. There is likely to be a tough time of it for the two PD men considering how close the election was last time out here, with seven candidates in the running and only 500 or so votes between 5 and 7 on the poll.
From the PDs: “Frank McNamara was musical director of the Late Late Show for 20 years and was the original producer of the Irish Tenors. He arranged and produced two consecutive Irish winners of the Eurovision Song Contest.”
“[Ben Doyle] worked in banking and financial services in the US for 15 years and more recently in the IFSC, Dublin. He now works as an independent consultant in this sector.
The current makeup of 1 FG, 2 FF, 1 SF and 1 Labour may look hard for the PDs but it is undoubtedly the decision of Fine Gael’s Gay Mitchell not to return from Europe that will give the PDs hope. Since they polled 1,500 votes in 2002 there is need for improvement.
Two new Fine Gael candidates probably look like fair game to the PDs and since that is where they traditionally get their votes from. It seems hard to bet against Ardagh or O Snodaigh while Upton and Byrne’s votes are unlikely to be natural PD constituency. However if Byrne and Upton split the difference again they may fall short of a quota meaning that it could be down to how strong a run the Greens put in and the order of eliminations/transfers which decide seat five. Deja Vu.
So the seats they are targetting are likely that vacated by Mitchell or possibly gather enough votes to squeeze Upton and Byrne out of the running. Its one to watch, no doubt.
This is crazy. Bob Quinn loses his deposit last time out, so the strategy this time is to run two candidates? Who is the PDs’ electoral strategist? What form has s/he got?
If it had been Theresa Lowe I could nearly understand it. Where in the World did they get this idea from?
Oh. Very drool.
It is very silly. Am i right in thinking Mr Daly was mentioned in Phoenix recently? Not sure why and cant locate it right now. Im sure it will be in again next time.
Ben your dead right, there is hardly enough votes there to be splitting them among two. All i can think is that the “community activist” is in place to split votes from other parties and supply transfers. I cant rationalise it otherwise.
So the PDs are going to the expense of running multiple candidates to shore up support for FF dead weights like Mulcahy?
that dan is perhaps the most sensible interpretation
I was sitting at home after reading the piece and I was thinking: “am I missing something here?”
It seems so idiotic, that I had to check that what the PDs are doing really is what they are doing.
Has there ever been a political strategist who has argued for sending TWO candidates out on a deposit-losing streak in the same constituency. I mean, did the PDs even use the last local elections to blood candidates in Dublin south central?
I’m going to take a stab in the dark here and say that it looks to me like someone is still hooked on their bloody Washington internship and believes that a direct translation of the American personality, media-driven candidate-type politics can be made to Ireland. They did the same down in Wexford with O’Gorman, and that’s not going to work out for them either.
Having said that, it worked with Fine Gael in the European elections and their Manchurian candidate Mairead McGuinness. If she gets elected in Louth and fine Gael get into government, Kenny better start checking his brakes, know what I mean? Mairead McGuinness “is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”
Mairead McGuinness “is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”
Ben thanks so much for my morning chuckle…
Is Ben Doyle the one who looks like Ricky Gervais on his poster?