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Day 22 Webroundup, turning to the Final Lap
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Furlongs, home straights, last turns, final miles, it is all before us now. The barrage of dodgy racing analogies can be taken out and dusted down for excessive use all week. For here we are, the final days. Press release of the day comes from Fianna Fail. Fizzy drinks bad. Its party policy.
Firstly this evening, Mark Hennessy’s blog is rapidly becoming essential reading. While news that Fianna Fail are delighted with the poll results, and the opposition slightly gutted, is hardly a scoop there is a very interesting piece on the annoyance of journalists at the manner in which they were treated (and allowed themselves to be treated) by Fianna Fail in 2002. Justified gripe?
Eric Byrne has pulled no punches so far on his blog. It should come as no surprise that he plays it straight as we turn for home (ooh, another one). The final seat in Dublin South West is between him and Michael Mulcahy. In his words, “The last time out, in 2002, I only lost out to the second Fianna Fail candidate by 3%. If people want an alternative Government I am the only candidate who can take the second Fianna Fail seat. It’s that simple and that important.”
Very interstingly, Health is struggling to be fit into the soundbites needed by politicians to run a campaign. We have the beds promises but solutions to the far more intractible nursing disputes are far harder to sell on the campaign trail. They are complex, diffuse and often involve extraordinary levels of jargon. So it is of help to all those who are more interested in policy to see that the Bitter Pill has a point by point response to the IMO’s objections to Mary Harney’s contract. Like most things there are good points on both sides. Fundamentally though, without cooperation you have no service.
Another blogging journo, Kevin Rafter, has helpfully taken away any need to get up on Friday. Or stay up late. Although he may be rewriting as we speak if the Irish Times has its finger, as it traditionally has, on the pulse.
The East Meath blog has been a vital and brilliant resource for information from that constituency over the last year or two. Today we get a very salient (and well informed/evidenced) piece of analysis on how the public realm in vital areas of society is being ceded to private intersts. This is because of the political detachment of politicians and our ruling elite. When one considers the lives of some people living in Meath, you cannot help but agree.
Speaking of Meath, Willie Corduff (of Rossport fame) stopped into Meath East to cavass with AJ Cahill. AJ got a video and they picked up Pat O’Brien of the anti-incinerator campaign. Lastly on the Meath topic Dominic has a roundup of his week (including a stint on RTE).
Rock the Vote is a failure. So say Adam and Twenty (for failure, read “fucking stupid”). In their own inimitable style.
Diarmy has a voicemail which he received from An Taoiseach, the Bert, encouraging the party faithful to keep up the good work.
It’s a little odd to see Hennessy complain about the journalists feel used by FF in 2002 — and then indicate that the big news of the today is an apparent FF surge in the polls. There’s a circularity to the analysis of the polls, where the media observe a livelier FF campaign and then use that to explain the poll findings, and the mood of the FF campaign is then explained in terms of the surge in the polls, so they run a livelier campaign …
it beats getting out among people and asking them how they will vote. Possibly a function of the STV too.
It would be nice if MRBI explained their methodology. The only description is this, from the Irish Times story
The poll was conducted last Friday and Saturday among a representative sample of 1,000 voters in face-to-face interviews at 100 sampling points in all 43 constituencies.
I’m not sure why they’re not doing a phone poll. Face-to-face is not random. I’m also not sure why they’re sampling in all 43 constituencies. They’re presenting this as a national poll so it should be representative of the population, not of the constituency map. Maybe they make adjustments for all these factors but it’s hard to tell when the focus is on the headline numbers.