OPINION:One-to-one explaining of the Lisbon Treaty to voters is the best way for the Yes side to win, writes ENDA KENNY.
THEY COME off the trains moving at speed and looking distracted. The speed is because they're on their way to work. The distracted look comes about because of the earphones and the white lines trailing from those earphones into the iPod on the belt or in the pocket. Each man and woman is an island, isolated by their own music or radio station choice.
If you advance on any of them, at eight in the morning, hand outstretched, they look at you in astonishment: why would anybody be smiling at them and greeting them warmly at a time of the day reserved for harassed incivility? Nonetheless, they pop the earphones, grasp the hand and pause to discuss the treaty, once they've worked out who you are and what you're there for.
Whether it's at Westland Row station or Leeson Street Bridge in Dublin, at meetings in Athlone, Carrick-on-Shannon or Galway, since I launched the Fine Gael Yes campaign for Lisbon with director of elections Gay Mitchell, I've encountered a consistent level of interest among busy people. People who have been turned off by set-piece Yes/No arguments in the media want to ask a specific question of someone they trust.
"I don't understand it and I know there's booklets to read," they say. "But can you explain this thing about . . ."
Those of us who have been out canvassing for the past couple of months have repeatedly found that voters have watched and listened to Lisbon coverage, and enjoyed the cut-and-thrust of some of the broadcast battles. However, for the first time in my experience, they are placing a huge emphasis on getting their information one-to-one from individual politicians. It goes beyond party affiliation, as demonstrated by one man I encountered at a railway station.
"Our Brian is going to sort you out," he told me. "But, c'mere to me, now that I have you. Is a Yes vote going to let in abortion?" No, I told him. It's not. I gave him chapter and verse on why the Irish stance on abortion will not be affected at all by Lisbon.
"Fair dues to you," he said. "I couldn't get that from a poster."
It wasn't much of a compliment, but it echoed what has informed the Fine Gael campaign from the outset: while launches and speeches serve a function, one-to-one information is crucial, particularly for members of the public for whom one issue could be the tipping point to a No vote.
That one-to-one information is beginning to wear down the substantial initial support base established by the No campaign's massive spend on misinformation. While the Government was engaged in laps of honour for taoisigh past and present, the No side was operating a loud-hailer campaign countered only by Fine Gael and Labour. The Greens and the PDs have been the dogs that failed to bark in the night.
Against that background, we were somewhat floored when this newspaper suggested the Taoiseach had made a passionate case for Lisbon while I had yet to do so. Not true. Brian Cowen came out of the traps on Lisbon last week. Fine Gael started campaigning for it two months ago.
In fact, I launched our formal campaign almost two weeks before any other party, earning the headline in The Irish Times: "Fighting talk from Fine Gael rallies voters for a robust treaty campaign". Just as I was the first party leader to make a passionate case for Lisbon, my face went up on posters weeks before any Fianna Fáil posters went up. Even today, while the Taoiseach is credited with making a case (albeit somewhat late) for a Yes vote, it's significant that Brian Cowen's face doesn't figure on any of the Fianna Fáil posters.
Instead, as Eliza Doolittle would point out, their posters are just "words, words, words".
I would never suggest that the absence of the Taoiseach's face from the FF posters is part of an insurance policy whereby he can't be blamed if the campaign is less than wholly successful, but I would point out that the bipartisan approach which should be key to the winning of this campaign has not been adopted by the Government.
I've written to every one of our 35,000 members, asking them to set aside party political differences and to vote Yes - for Ireland and for Europe.
I've gone further. I invited Brian Cowen to join me at 7.30am at Pearse Street station the day after he took up his new office. It would have created a buzz. It would have hammered home that the two biggest parties in Dáil Éireann are in agreement on the Lisbon Treaty. It would have taken the ground from under those who would wish for a No vote as a way of punishing this Government, making it clear that Fine Gael, while it wants this incompetent and tired Government punished, doesn't want disaffection to colour the national vote on the Lisbon Treaty.
Brian Cowen didn't take up that invitation. But it's still open. He would be welcome to join any of the early morning canvasses Fine Gael continues to run.
Because, for my party, the Lisbon Treaty is about keeping Ireland at the heart of Europe, helping Europe cope with its population of 500 million people, and rising above party politics to counter a sinister misinformation campaign on the No side.
Enda Kenna is leader of the Fine Gael party