Re: Paddy Power AGM

Ahem, it was interesting :slight_smile:

What are they saying about SF’s performance? I think they were unlucky in the two Donegal seats, as individual vote getters they did quite well just killed by transfers.

Likwise O’Toole didn’t do terribly in Dublin North East but Ellis, Crowe and McDonald all got significantly less first preferences than expected.

So they need to do some things over the next 5 years:

  • get McDonald in particular (or Kehoe) working hard in Cabra and becoming a local figure like O’Toole for example.
  • get Killian Forde on a ticket somwhere. He’s impressive locally, he speaks very well on the media and I know for example that he went to a Dublin Bay conference out in Dn Laoghaire one week to speak by invitation from the Green Party and he was very impressive with his plans and knowledge of environmental issues.
  • work very hard on getting a friendlier media profile so they can pick up transfers.

I’m not sure I agree with that. That implies that the working class vote went elsewhere but clearly Labour (hardly socialist but they do have working class roots), Socialists etc. didn’t benefit. So are they suggesting that people who previously voted Sinn Fin because they were left-wing didn’t vote at all this time because SF changed policies. I think that’s unlikely. It would explain a shift in votes to someone else but people who just didn’t vote hardly felt betrayed by policies. I’d say they just weren’t mobilised properly.