GENEVIEVE CARBERY'Ssideways look at the Presidential election
Which candidate has the X factor?
BROADCASTER MIRIAM O'Callaghan has come up with a novel solution for those with campaign fatigue as the third televised debate on Wednesday's RTÉ Prime Timeapproaches. Debate host O'Callaghan made her suggestion in a Twitter post on Saturday night: "Watching X Factorwith room full of kids – wondering if I could liven up Prime Timepresidential debate on Wed by asking them all to do a song."
O'Callaghan received numerous replies including song suggestions for candidates, such as I'm the Leader of the Gangfor Martin McGuinness, Love Letters Straight from Your Heartfor David Norris and a performance of Riverdancefor Michael D Higgins. Former Eurovisionwinner Dana's choice may be obvious but there was one suggestion of a variation in her winning song to All Kinds of Citizenship.
Celebs sing the praises of McGuinness
CELEBRITY HAS come to the fore as Gay Mitchell said yesterday it would be a “very serious mistake” to “choose celebrity over substance”.
However the Martin McGuinness campaign has uploaded several celebrity endorsement videos on its YouTube page in recent days.
They include Touched by an Angelactor Roma Downey, actor Fionnula Flanagan, singer Frances Black, writer Peter Sheridan and former Tyrone footballer Peter Canavan.
The campaign also uploaded audio of actor Colm Meaney on Pat Kenny’s RTÉ radio show last Thursday in which he backed McGuinness.
A celebrity association with former South African president Nelson Mandela is what some candidates seem to be scrambling for, though, since the first radio debate on RTÉ when an exasperated Seán O’Rourke said: “We’ve all had our picture taken with Nelson Mandela.”
The McGuinness campaign has uploaded a video of former Mandela minister and ANC activist Ronnie Krasils wishing McGuinness luck, while Mary Davis campaign literature shows a rather dated photo of her with Nelson Mandela, but does not name the context.
* McGuinness YouTube: page: bit.ly/oyzhIj
* Davis literature: bit.ly/oR4t8E
Candidates know there's something about Mary
IF IMITATION is the sincerest form of flattery, then President Mary McAleese must be feeling a warm glow during this campaign.
Yesterday Independent candidate Dana Rosemary Scallon spoke of “crossing bridges” – presumably these are the ones McAleese has created, implementing her famous 1997 campaign theme of “building bridges”.
“As a president I believe I can cross bridges,” Dana said on RTÉ radio. “I can cross bridges between our North and South communities, our Protestant communities, our Catholics, with families, with the unemployed, with our emigrants, with our wonderful ambassadors. Ireland has got talent here and throughout the world, I feel I can draw that together.”
Seán Gallagher, in The Irish Timeson Saturday, said he wanted to "do for enterprise and job creation what President Mary McAleese did for peace".
POSTER WATCH: URBAN-RURAL DIVIDE
Dubliners pass a besuited and polished Gay Mitchell with a streetscape background on their lampposts every day, but not rural dwellers.
A second version of the Fine Gael candidate’s poster has been erected in rural areas. Mitchell, a candidate considered to have a mainly urban identity, has reached out to his country constituents with a poster on which he is wearing an anorak, with a tractor and farmer in the background.
While Mitchell has managed to keep an even appeal across urban and rural areas, it's at a dismal 9 per cent of first-preferences in both, according to last week's Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: GAY MITCHELL
"I will work with them [the Government] and the network I have to restore the confidence of this country so those children in Buncrana and Sligo and Dublin do not have to become part of a Skype generation, while we sip champagne in the park reading poetry". Which candidate could he possibly be referring to?