If there’s one thing we know about presidential elections, it is that the campaigns can ebb and flow, often dramatically. Both the presidential elections in recent memory,1990 and 1997,were rollercoaster rides,with the fortunes of the candidates changing as the campaign developed. This year’s race has already followed that pattern.
However, the action so far, the early debates and the polls that have been published - notably in this newspaper last weekend - allow us to state a number of things with confidence at this stage. Seven candidates for one elected position is not actually unusual. What is unusual is that many of them are viable candidates. This election will, in all likelihood, go to six counts, and that has enormous implications for the candidates’ strategies. Sowhat dowe knowat this stage?
It’s not all about the party
While party bases may provide valuable strengths to some of the candidates, this is overwhelmingly a personality election, not a partybased one. The normal political rules about ‘core votes’ are much less important. Martin McGuinness is the only candidate with solid support from his own party (a massive 76 per cent) but, given that Sinn Fe¤ in is the number four party, this doesn’t on its own get him into contention.
It’s not a general election
This is becoming a ‘niche’ election. Every candidate must now follow the strategy of finding a fairly narrowcore vote (say 10 to 15 per cent) and building fromthat. Thismay be whyMichaelDHiggins is ramping up the culture/language references, and why Sean Gallagher has a sudden interest in farming matters. No two of the candidates cite the same issues or priorities, which is unusual. They all have different bases - Norris, for example, has 42 per cent support among students, McGuinness 31 per cent of the unemployed. The problem is that neither of these groups votes in large numbers.
We have a clear front-runner
Higgins is the current favourite.He came second in last week’s poll, but he is transfer-friendly, and a slight strengthening of his Labour-voting base (of which he is only getting 43 per cent at present) will see him into first place on the first count. If he can stick to the middle ground, avoid accidents and not offend anyone, he will probably win. Higgins can only be challenged by someone who builds a strong base, probably age or social classrelated, but sticks to the middle in order to get transfers - ie someone who is bold enough to get noticed, but bland enough not to offend anyone.
It’s uphill for Norris
It is very difficult to see any route to victory for David Norris,who has a passionate but shrinking base.Only Higgins has any significant number of Norris-inclined voters in his camp, but he is unlikely to be eliminated. In order to win, Norris would have to be well ahead on the first count and Higgins would have to fall significantly - and neither seems likely to happen.
And for McGuinness
An apparent route to victory seems also to be eludingMartinMcGuinness. The idea canvassed by some when he entered - that he had become ‘the man to beat’ - is not supported by the numbers so far, let alone by the debate. On current available data, he is likely to finish third or fourth. He has the base, but has little appeal outside it. McGuinness will probably outperform the party, but the benefit to Sinn Fe¤ in is not clear, especially as he is running a republicanismfocused campaign and the party’s political strategy appears to be protest-focused.
Use your elbows
It seems that GayMitchell can only grow by bringing down others. Barring a sudden surge in support for him, he has no route to victory.The figures show that Higgins and Davis are the first place Mitchell has to go to increase his vote. Clearly they knew this already, which is why they have been researching negative campaign messages.
Potential
Davis has a good base, and is strong withwomen and older voters.Being the only non-politico, she also offends none of the bases. She attracts strong transfers, so if she can get her vote to near 20 per cent, she has a very clear shot - which is why she is suddenly facing attacks from a number of sides. She has still to provide a compelling reason either to vote for her, or why she wants the job. But she is in good shape. The ones who aren’t there
Fianna Fail voters are strongly inclined toward the independents. Less than a third support one of the candidates nominated by a party.
So what now?
Three principal dynamics seem most likely to assert themselves: Gay Mitchell’s fightback, David Norris’s travails and the questions aboutMartinMcGuinness’s past. Mitchell’s answer to every question about his weak opinion poll showings has been that Adi Roche started off in 1997 with polls showing she was going to win, and ended up getting 6 per cent.And he’s right: she did.
But this just shows that a candidate can collapse in the course of a campaign; it doesn’t show that a candidate can come from nowhere. In the first poll of 1997, Mary McAleese was on 40 per cent; in the first poll of 1990,Mary Robinson was on 29 per cent. Those figures offer little comfort forMitchell. Fine Gael, either via the candidate himself or others on his behalf, will clearly attack McGuinness on his past.The Fine Gael hope is that it lifts their candidate up to nearer the party’s vote.
But the entire strategy behind the selection and promotion ofMitchell - that nearly 40 per cent of the electorate are now Fine Gaelers and that therefore a real Fine Gaeler (not a blow-in like Pat Cox) could win the presidency for the first time - is fundamentally flawed. Voters these days are a lot more independent than that, and in a presidential election, they are doubly so. Mitchell has a mountain to climb, and the smarter Fine Gaelers know it. They will campaign for Mitchell, for sure, but they won’t die in the ditches for him. The questions about McGuinness have not gone away, to coin a phrase, and they seem unlikely to.
His line is that people will judge him in the round, taking into account all aspects of his life. That may be so, but indications are that that judgment will not result in support for his presidential bid. McGuinness’s campaign is as much about bringing Sinn Fe¤ in into the mainstream as it is about bringing it into Aras an Uachtarain,but it is not clear right now that redebating theNorthern conflict is the way to do that. Norris is perhaps the greatest source of volatility in the campaign. The questions about his past actions and his judgment appear to be intensifying rather than abating. His opponents appear content to let the media pursue him; the media appear content with this too.
In the end, Norris’s hold-out is probably too brazen to last and he may rue the day he got back in the race.But where will his votes go? Higgins made a clever play for them,turning up atCityHall to pronounce his blessing on a Norris nomination. Over the coming weeks, the rest will try variations on the same trick.
