Winners and Losers…

Time for us all to think about our individual winners and losers of the campaign – feel free to do your own lists in the comments – I’m picking a few who come to mind and one for who the jury is still out for as far as I’m concerned. (Note I’m mentioning the Seanad - yup another election just around the corner!)

Edit: Damien’s included below too.

Winners
Lucinda Creighton
She’s been smiling since Friday night, and all over the TV and radio. Destined for the front bench, Lucinda is now an Enda Babe and better watch her back. Never mind being a new pin up for Blogorrah, Lucinda has been Thicko’d. Her old pal from TCD, Leo Varadkar, probably wishes he had blonde hair and a lovely smile too given the lack of similar coverage give to his victory in Dublin West and election as a young TD.

Richard Boyd Barrett

Richard didn’t win a seat but won a lot of coverage this campaign (and not just because of who is birth mother is). Double barrelled name, middle class voters who don’t quiver much in voting for him, a council manager who’ll keep making unpopular decisions in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown - Richard is finally destined for a council seat and will be a good bet for Dail31 if the voters still don’t get that the People before Profit are Socialist Workers Party in new wrapping paper.

Losers

Dominic Hannigan
Well the Dáil Dude didn’t make it and it was not his fault given the last few years of hard work and visibility in Meath East. Definitely worth a run out at a Seanad seat given Kathleen O’Meara may not get the support from party HQ for another attempt. He’s honest with it as those readers of his blog the last while have come to learn and I for one hope he keeps blogging too!

Ivor Calelly

I’m surprised so little was made of the fall of Ivor – maybe the downsizing of the constituency from 4 to 3 meant that everyone had him cast off already. Ivor seems to have been the Royston of the 30^th Dail Campaign with the poster problems and all. One thing for sure - when FF drop you - they really drop you.

Dan Boyle
Wondering why Celebrity You’re a Star did not do the same for him as it did for Finian McGrath, the Green’s have lost their star turn on the policy front. He might be back in the Seanad if he can get the transfers.

Jury Out

Finian McGrath

Battling hard to keep his seat in Dublin North Central, it’s clear that Finian is ready to sell out to Bertie for the right price. It never did Tony Gregory any harm I suppose and without Seamus Healy and Catherine Murphy and Jerry Cowley around, he does not have anyone to prick his conscience.

Mulley’s winners and losers:

The winners:

The copy and paste function in Microsoft Word.
Fianna Fail copied and pasted from the PDs, from Labour, from the
Greens and from Sinn Fein. Fine Gael copied and pasted from the
marketing presentations of the U.S. Democrats and from the P.D.s.
Labour did something similar too and modeled themselves on U.S. style
politics.

The people.
They voted with their wallets. They voted for a change but it was a
change that Sinn Fein, the Independents, Labour and the Greens didn’t
want them to vote for. They voted that as long as they got their cut
from dodgy deals and corruption, they didn’t give a fuck.

The losers:

Monopolies
For a party that bleats that they don’t like monopolies, the PDs acted
like one and assumed that they could keep the middle-class interested
in them with this election too. An arrogant attitude and a leader
devoid of compassion seems to have helped many decide to try someone
else. I don’t think as such that there was a PD meltdown but the PDs
one-trick pony of making middle-class people richer was copied by the
majority of other parties. That surely says something, They may have
made Ireland a more competitive market but they also made the other
parties more competitive too. Increasing choice worked against them.

Sinn Féin
The biggest losers for me though are Sinn Fein. Despite the peace
process and their trojan work in working class communities around
Ireland, Siin Féin got beaten up by the electorate. One has to wonder
how much of their votes last time were protest votes. When it was seen
by so many and even expected of Sinn Fein that they had a good shot at
getting into Government, people who took a flutter on them last time
may have had a rethink.

A shambolic performance by British MP Gerry Adams representing a party
who used Northern personalities to try and boost Southern votes showed
exactly the disconnect between the Northern republicans and the people
of a republic who simply don’t care about the North now that it is
sorted. Sinn Féin and so many more expected to take many seats,
especially in Dublin. Even before boxes were opened, Mary Lou was
expected to romp home. Instead back to Europe she goes. People are
talking about a night of long knives for Labour but perhaps we should
instead be looking at Sinn Fein. The party has brains to burn so maybe
they’ll come out of this in a few years a completely transformed party
but I wonder who’ll they’ll take votes from?