Confined to Baracks
Harry McGee
I’m not going to write anything about Obama because there’s nothing I can add to the daily avalanche of prose and wisdom and observation (and dross and saccharine sentiment and bilge). For a good cross-representation (if you can take any more!) go to www.realclearpolitics.com or read Andrew Sullivan’s exceptional piece in the Sunday Times last Sunday.
Anyway, he’s the reason there’s been little blogging activity this week. I’ve spend all my down time swotting up on the US elections for various panel discussions, including the smashingly good Leviathan last night. It’s helped by David McWilliams who might have trained as an economist but whose true vocation is as a star of vaudeville.
Stayability isn’t what it use to be with a lot of people. A lot of the gigs last night were emptied of atmosphere (and of people) as the night wore on. In the end I couldn’t hack it. We got home from the Button Factory at two and I managed to stay up until 3, an hour before it was called for Obama, but already patently obvious that he would win. I missed his acceptance speech which was – as you’d expect – mesmeric (so was McCain’s… gracious and dignified). Hope Obama can rule as well as he speaks!
Once Pennsylvania went with him, there was no going back. But much earlier on, the vote distribution in Red States like Indiana and Kentucky showed a very different picture from when Bush easily brushed off Kerry in 2001.
It’s been a strange political week back here. A non-week. Because of the massive distraction of the US elections. Which is overweaning actually. And because of a certain amount of battle fatigue after two hard weeks of bombardment. There were a couple of skirmishes over the weekend but it was uneventful around here this week (to put it at its mildest). Somebody suggested this week that it would be a good week for the Government to slip in an unpopular measure (a la Jo Moore in the UK after 9-11). But there was evidence that I could see.
I have already confessed publicly (tarred and feathered myself actually) about my brilliant powers of prediction. Bertie giving Hillary the Shamrock in the White House next year etc. was definitely the career highlight in that regard.
My confidence has been restored by a good run of late. So, as a publci service, I’ll predict the following:
If the PDs (mainly the Limerick ones) decide they have a future next Saturday they will find out soon enough that that future is actually behind them.
Fianna Fail had a chronic local election in 2004. The worst ever. It will be worse in 2009.
The Government will last. The Greens can’t pull out with any credibiliyt in the next year. The only conceivable pull-out is if they don’t get a carbon tax/levy in next year’s Budget. Otherwise, the resignation will happen in the same period of the election cycle as Labour’s withdrawal happened in 1982-1987 (ie right at the very end as a face-saving exercise).
Enda Kenny’s position is secure now, especially after THAT poll. But will that last indefinitely during his second term in opposition. The precedence from the past in Fine Gael is NOT good.
And while I’m at it:
Galway to win the All-Ireland next year in hurling. After winning Leinster of course.
