"Private Polls Predict Election Disaster for Fianna Fáil" says the Sunday Tribune front page lead headline. These leaked "secret constituency polls" are said to indicate a loss of up to 15 seats. Also mentioned is feedback from focus groups that indicate that "voters would like more decisive leadership from the government". My question is who leaked these poll figures and why?
Informed sources are said to describe the poll findings as "pretty grim" and in the same paragraph reference is made to the figures being on a par with the results of the 1992 election. I'm not sure whether the "informed sources" or Shane Coleman, the paper's political correspondent, made that comparison. Of course the 1992 result was an unequivocal disaster for Fianna Fáil but it was a snap winter election and perceived by the public as being totally unnecessary, the result of a minor squabble between Taoiseach Albert Reynolds and his PD ministerial colleagues. I doubt if we will ever witness a more inept and incompetent campaign as that waged by FF in 1992 and the last two election battles have shown that party has a thus far unrivalled ability in meticulous election planning. So barring an unforeseen cock up, I expect more of the same.
Let's assume that the poll figures were deliberately leaked. The advantage to Fianna Fáil is that these figures represent the worst-case scenario and there is still plenty of time to bounce back, as long as 20 months. The poll figures apparently are not skewed in favour of any particular party and the insider spin is that Fine Gael and Labour still have enormous ground to make up on the 2002 result. As there are possibly two giveaway budgets and the payouts from the SSIA accounts to come before the next election, the spin is that "there is everything to play for". So maybe it's a case of getting all the bad news out and begin to mount a recovery strategy beginning with the parliamentary party meeting in Cavan next month.
Incidentally, according to the Sunday Times, they will be addressed by no less a luminary than Robert Putnam of Bowling Alone fame, who will tell the assembled multitudes all about the need to generate a stock of "social capital" if strong and viable communities are to be built up and maintained.
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