Dana website light on achievements

Campaign trail: Cian Nihill’s sideways look at the presidential election

Campaign trail: Cian Nihill'ssideways look at the presidential election

DANA ROSEMARY Scallon could not escape the critics yesterday, even on her own “Dana for President” website. In the midst of her official biography lay a paragraph that appeared to mock the former Eurovision winner, accidentally left in by a presumably well-meaning editor of the website.

Six paragraphs in, after the biography detailed how Dana “rocked the political establishment” with her election to the European Parliament in 1999, the website went on to say: “It doesn’t matter that she shocked the political world . . . I don’t think this should focus so much ‘rocking the political world’ and beating people . . . she needs to focus in this paragraph on what she ACHIEVED when she was in parliament.”

After the blunder was highlighted on Twitter, the remarks were removed – no achievements were added however.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY: SEÁN GALLAGHER

"I have never used the word 'condemnation' in my life. It is not in my vocabulary"

He shows an amazing talent to use words that are not in his vocabulary as he explained why he had not been harsher on Fianna Fáil during Wednesday night’s debate.

Facebook followers echo poll findings

TRENDS IN Facebook figures are a surprisingly accurate indicator of candidates’ general popularity, according to an Dr Ciarán McMahon, lecturer of psychology in Dublin Business School. He has been tracking the Facebook pages of the seven hopefuls through his website candidate.ie. He says Seán Gallagher’s rise in the polls was “of no great surprise” to those who had noticed increased support on the social networking site. Three of the four most popular candidates are Gallagher, Michael D Higgins and Martin McGuinness, who occupied the three top spots in last week’s Ipsos/MRBI Irish Times poll. Ahead of all of them is the former favourite David Norris, whose recent fall in polls has been mirrored online through the trend of actually losing 13 followers this week.

Stretching of imagination among Norris's sports

WHILE TV3 was filming Mary Davis out running on a beach yesterday morning after a notably athletic stretch-out on camera, fellow independent candidate David Norris was detailing his own athletic exploits on the Ray D’Arcy Show on TodayFM.Norris proudly boasted that he had completed three marathons in his time, a feat he credited to his wise tactic of “steady jogging” from the start. Of course, this “steady” pace left him rather far back from the front of the race, placing him dead last in one event, he admitted. “I never broke the five-hour barrier”, he said, adding that on one occasion, race organisers “were just beginning to dismantle the clock” as he crossed the line.