Gilmore for Taoiseach?

[magpie seanie]

This poll is the end of Enda Kenny.

Yip thats the big story not the end of FF 

You mustn't know much about what's going on.

[Ludraman]

The place is screwed an people want a new opposition leader. 

We are just plane stupid.

[Maguire01]

We are just plane stupid.

I blame Ryanair.

[Rossfan]

Labour will not get a seat in Donegal NE or SW, Cavan/Monaghan,Ros /Leitrim

Rossfan, they will come very close to winning 1 in Ros/Leitrim.
The 2 FG candidates are poor and no way will they hold onto the 2 they have.
There is a seat going there for labour in my book

I presume you are talking about the Ballagh man( a great Ros supporter)??

My clued in mates tell me he'd have a better chance if he had remained Independent .

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

Labour will not get a seat in Donegal NE or SW, Cavan/Monaghan,Ros /Leitrim

Rossfan, they will come very close to winning 1 in Ros/Leitrim.
The 2 FG candidates are poor and no way will they hold onto the 2 they have.
There is a seat going there for labour in my book

I presume you are talking about the Ballagh man( a great Ros supporter)??

My clued in mates tell me he'd have a better chance if he had remained Independent .

Frenchpark stock so!

[Zapatista]

This poll is the end of Enda Kenny.

Yip thats the big story not the end of FF 

Thought that odd myself when I hear it as top news story on all the stations.

I wasn't mistaking you for a soldier. The first day it was all about Gilmore and now its all about Kenny and normally the poll should be forgot about by tomorrow.

I can't see a leadership change doing any good. FGs big hitter Dick Bruton is very popular in Finance squaring upto an ever failing Lenihan. Kenny has COwen on the ropes. A resuffle with FG finace spokesperson will cost the party as any replacement will not fill his boots on the most important position in the party.

[Hound]

This poll is the end of Enda Kenny.

Yip thats the big story not the end of FF 

Thought that odd myself when I hear it as top news story on all the stations.

I wasn't mistaking you for a soldier. The first day it was all about Gilmore and now its all about Kenny and normally the poll should be forgot about by tomorrow.

I can't see a leadership change doing any good. FGs big hitter Dick Bruton is very popular in Finance squaring upto an ever failing Lenihan. Kenny has COwen on the ropes. A resuffle with FG finace spokesperson will cost the party as any replacement will not fill his boots on the most important position in the party.

But if Bruton wants to be leader, he has to make his move now. Otherwise it'll be 4 or 5 years down the line and others like Coveney, Varadker, etc. could be strong contenders. If there's a change now, he's guaranteed to win and pretty much guaranteed to be Taoiseach.

[Hardy]

I can't believe the naivety of the debate - FG front benchers and media commentators alike. Enda is a great lad, people like him, he's "electrified" the party, etc. Hardly any discussion of the only relevant point: large numbers of voters, particularly in urban constituencies will not bring themselves to elect him as Taoiseach. With Kenny as leader, FG are likely to be the second party in the coalition and Gilmore is likely to be Taoiseach. With Bruton as leader, FG will lead the government. Nothing else matters.

[muppet]

I can't believe the naivety of the debate - FG front benchers and media commentators alike. Enda is a great lad, people like him, he's "electrified" the party, etc. Hardly any discussion of the only relevant point: large numbers of voters, particularly in urban constituencies will not bring themselves to elect him as Taoiseach. With Kenny as leader, FG are likely to be the second party in the coalition and Gilmore is likely to be Taoiseach. With Bruton as leader, FG will lead the government. Nothing else matters.

The FF strategy hasn't changed. Bash the opposition leader whether it is Alan Dukes, John Bruton, Michael Noonan or Enda Kenny. Attack him on vague issues such as personality, ability to lead, etc. This sound byte is lapped up by the Irish media at every election and FF don't have to burden themselves with awkward things like policies. And it works. The problem in FG is that there are so many ambitious/opportunist types that they don't come out aggressively defending their leader unlike their FF counterparts who fall over themselves to do so.

Bruton might win this but he should know better than most what will happen next. The FF media guns will turn on him and he will end up like his brother, Kenny and the rest except he will start with a fractured party. I am very surprised at him tbh. I would have expected that he would do a deal with Kenny so there would be a bloodless transfer after the election like Ahern/Cowen and Blair/Brown (almost).

As an aside anyone who thinks Labour will win an Irish GE has obviously never lived through an Irish GE or has never been outside a city.

[Hardy]

I can't believe the naivety of the debate - FG front benchers and media commentators alike. Enda is a great lad, people like him, he's "electrified" the party, etc. Hardly any discussion of the only relevant point: large numbers of voters, particularly in urban constituencies will not bring themselves to elect him as Taoiseach. With Kenny as leader, FG are likely to be the second party in the coalition and Gilmore is likely to be Taoiseach. With Bruton as leader, FG will lead the government. Nothing else matters.

The FF strategy hasn't changed. Bash the opposition leader whether it is Alan Dukes, John Bruton, Michael Noonan or Enda Kenny. Attack him on vague issues such as personality, ability to lead, etc. This sound byte is lapped up by the Irish media at every election and FF don't have to burden themselves with awkward things like policies. And it works. The problem in FG is that there are so many ambitious/opportunist types that they don't come out aggressively defending their leader unlike their FF counterparts who fall over themselves to do so.

Bruton might win this but he should know better than most what will happen next. The FF media guns will turn on him and he will end up like his brother, Kenny and the rest except he will start with a fractured party. I am very surprised at him tbh. I would have expected that he would do a deal with Kenny so there would be a bloodless transfer after the election like Ahern/Cowen and Blair/Brown (almost).

Whether or not it's based on FF propaganda (and I don't necessarily subscribe to the theory that people need FF to show them that Kenny is a lightweight of limited capacity) the electorate's perception of Kenny remains the most important factor in deciding FG's fate in the election.

This, and FG's naive attitude to it, to which I referred, has just been graphically borne out on Liveline. 80% of callers to the programme, all but a few of whom were FG members, opposed Bruton's heave. However, in a phone-in text poll with over 8,000 respondents, 62% supported it.

As an aside anyone who thinks Labour will win an Irish GE has obviously never lived through an Irish GE or has never been outside a city.

I'd say the history of GEs will mean less at the next election than ever before. These are unusual times and the disaffected vote will be the biggest it's ever been. A huge anti-FF vote will be up for grabs, a large proportion of which will be the young dis-employed (i.e. job losers) and negative-equity sufferers. The proverb "if you're not a socialist at twenty you have no heart; if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain" might be relevant. Add in the fact that Gilmore understands that the last thing he needs to do is enunciate policies to give people something to vote against, while FG hasn't grasped this at all and is busy publishing policies when all the electorate wants is some to hate less than FF and it wouldn't be a surprise at all to see labour win more seats than FG. At least with Kenny in charge.

[muppet]

I can't believe the naivety of the debate - FG front benchers and media commentators alike. Enda is a great lad, people like him, he's "electrified" the party, etc. Hardly any discussion of the only relevant point: large numbers of voters, particularly in urban constituencies will not bring themselves to elect him as Taoiseach. With Kenny as leader, FG are likely to be the second party in the coalition and Gilmore is likely to be Taoiseach. With Bruton as leader, FG will lead the government. Nothing else matters.

The FF strategy hasn't changed. Bash the opposition leader whether it is Alan Dukes, John Bruton, Michael Noonan or Enda Kenny. Attack him on vague issues such as personality, ability to lead, etc. This sound byte is lapped up by the Irish media at every election and FF don't have to burden themselves with awkward things like policies. And it works. The problem in FG is that there are so many ambitious/opportunist types that they don't come out aggressively defending their leader unlike their FF counterparts who fall over themselves to do so.

Bruton might win this but he should know better than most what will happen next. The FF media guns will turn on him and he will end up like his brother, Kenny and the rest except he will start with a fractured party. I am very surprised at him tbh. I would have expected that he would do a deal with Kenny so there would be a bloodless transfer after the election like Ahern/Cowen and Blair/Brown (almost).

Whether or not it's based on FF propaganda (and I don't necessarily subscribe to the theory that people need FF to show them that Kenny is a lightweight of limited capacity) the electorate's perception of Kenny remains the most important factor in deciding FG's fate in the election.

This, and FG's naive attitude to it, to which I referred, has just been graphically borne out on Liveline. 80% of callers to the programme, all but a few of whom were FG members, opposed Bruton's heave. However, in a phone-in text poll with over 8,000 respondents, 62% supported it.

As an aside anyone who thinks Labour will win an Irish GE has obviously never lived through an Irish GE or has never been outside a city.

I'd say the history of GEs will mean less at the next election than ever before. These are unusual times and the disaffected vote will be the biggest it's ever been. A huge anti-FF vote will be up for grabs, a large proportion of which will be the young dis-employed (i.e. job losers) and negative-equity sufferers. The proverb "if you're not a socialist at twenty you have no heart; if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain" might be relevant. Add in the fact that Gilmore understands that the last thing he needs to do is enunciate policies to give people something to vote against, while FG hasn't grasped this at all and is busy publishing policies when all the electorate wants is some to hate less than FF and it wouldn't be a surprise at all to see labour win more seats than FG. At least with Kenny in charge.

Hardy, nationally they don't have enough realistic candidates to come anywhere other than 2nd and that needs a serious collapse of FF or FG. It can't be both unless we get 50/60 independents returned.

[Hardy]

That seems reasonable, Muppet. But we're two-thirds of the way there. We have the FF collapse. We haven't a FG collapse, just a failure to pick up any of the lost FF support. It's all going to Labour. It may well be that Labour's 6-point-odd lead over FG wouldn't deliver them more seats, based on analysis by constituency. But if FF were to collapse even further (for instance, they can't expect to go up or even remain static after the next budget), who will pick up the gains? There's no reason to expect that FG will while Inda is still the Taoiseach on offer and Gilmore just has to keep his mouth shut, except to spout populist shite.

[Billys Boots]

People in this country don't for for things, they vote against things - Hardy is right that Gilmore is playing the correct strategy.  He won't win any contests by telling people what he will do (not now anyway, a long way from an election).  Kenny has made a complete mess, and I think Bruton sees now that he's a liability and he needs to be ditched (and be seen to be ditched) well in advance of an election.

[Hound]

Bruton is also under serious pressure from the FG front bench to mount a leadership challenge. While a Labour victory seems out of the question, they could end up with sufficient seats to warrant 7 or 8 cabinet posts, whereas the FG front benchers would like to give up no more than 4.

[muppet]

Bruton is also under serious pressure from the FG front bench to mount a leadership challenge. While a Labour victory seems out of the question, they could end up with sufficient seats to warrant 7 or 8 cabinet posts, whereas the FG front benchers would like to give up no more than 4.

And if it goes wrong they could end up with none.

My guess is a deal. Kenny until a year or two after the election, then a bloodless handover to Bruton.