Perception matters more than voting trends, and our view of three parties may have been changed utterly by the election results, writes Jim Duffy.
Tip O'Neill said "all politics is local". It would be more accurate to say "all politics is perception", for it is perception that ultimately shapes our attitudes and perspectives on politics and politicians. Just how true that is can be seen in the impact of the 2004 elections on three political parties. How we see them, and whether we can now vote for them, may well have been changed utterly by the election results.
Take Fine Gael. Since Garret FitzGerald's retirement as leader in 1987, the party has faced an ever-growing crisis of perceived relevance, as shown in the low satisfaction rating of its leaders. Put simply, voters were so indifferent that they couldn't be bothered learning enough to give themselves a positive perception of whomever was Fine Gael leader.
No matter what Fine Gael did, public indifference meant that it was not noticed, so producing constant stagnancy in opinion polls. Effectively, the party was haunted by a cyclical perception of irrelevance: the media ignored or ridiculed it, picking up on negative vibes from voters. The voters, reacting to media hostility, did the same. And its senior members, finding that they could make no impact, became lethargic, producing a bad press, which produced negative public perceptions, which . . . etc.
Fine Gael's failure to define itself in the 1990s produced the disastrous meltdown of 2002, though in practice the meltdown was partly illusory; Ireland's relative rather than absolute proportional representation system gave the party an unprecedented "negative bounce" (i.e., fewer seats than in percentage terms it should have won).
Thanks to the 2002 result its perceived credibility practically hit zero, meaning that the 2004 elections were almost literally its last chance to avoid implosion and the fate of the British Liberals at best (become a small fringe party), the Canadian Conservatives at worst (be wiped out). Face local and European meltdown following on the Dáil meltdown, and Fine Gael would be finished.
Instead in 2004, to the surprise of critics, it experienced a paradigm shift, going from perceived decaying irrelevance to perceived serious challenger to head an alternative government. From widespread ignoring, it now has the attention of voters and media alike. Its central task now is to deliver credible policies and vision to convince people to vote for it in the next general election.
For Sinn Féin, too, the 2004 elections offered a unique chance to rebrand public perception of itself. Sinn Féin had been seen by those not supporting it as small, self-righteous and besotted with its own brand of republicanism, hence support bases in fringe communities and among devotees of its brand of republicanism.
2004 changed all that, however, showing that the party had a far larger electoral appeal which can draw across-the-board transfers. Put simply, the party has moved from republican politics to politics of the Republic.
However, as with Fine Gael, its task is now to deliver on its promise and perceived electoral value. Get it right and it could be seen, long-term, as a radical focus for change. Get it wrong and it could be seen as just another small radical republican party that promised a lot and delivered little. In other words it could become the new Fianna Fáil, or the new Clann na Poblachta.
The third party to undergo a change in image in perception thanks to the local and European elections is Fianna Fáil.
Fianna Fáil's image was simple: it was perceived as the dominant political force in Ireland. The reality was different. Since the 1980s the party, with the odd blip, has been in long-term electoral decline. The early 1990s saw its support drop to 1930s levels, only exceeded by 2004, when the party went down to 1920s levels of support.
But the scale of the decline in Fianna Fáil's case had long been masked by its continuation in power and most dramatically by the 2002 general election, when the party, again thanks to our relative rather than absolute system of PR, received an astonishing bounce of extra seats. That made the election look like a success when it was in reality another mediocre performance in its long-term decline.
Take away the party's successful candidate strategy in maximising seats on declining votes, the weak Opposition and the incredibly lucky bounce in seat numbers, and 2002 looks far less rosy for the party than public perception thinks.
Which is why the 2004 election results for Fianna Fáil are so important, because they have the potential to rewrite the public perception and make the "guaranteed top-dogs" look distinctly vulnerable. 2004 marks Irish politics's "the emperor has no clothes" moment, when the truth, not misleading perception, of Fianna Fáil's electoral vulnerability stands before the electorate. For all three parties in 2004, past rather cliched public perceptions of themselves, their strengths and their weaknesses have been undermined.
All three, however, need to follow through - Sinn Féin to build up its support base outside traditional republican heartlands and move beyond its one issue "It's the Belfast Agreement, stupid!" mantra. In Fine Gael's case, it needs to convince voters that it is a credible fulcrum on which the next anti-Fianna Fáil coalition of red and green can be balanced.
Fianna Fáil needs to realise it faces a potentially damaging pincer movement: a Fine Gael-led alternative government now perceived as electable, on the one hand, and a rebranded, votable Sinn Féin, chasing its republican support base on the other.
Jim Duffy is a political commentator