The Triumph of Process over Policy

The papers this weekend are full of Fine Gael, I will mention just two.  In the Sunday Tribune Shane Coleman concedes that the political recovery of Fine Gael, since being left for dead after the 2002 election, is nothing short of remarkable.  He praises Enda Kenny for his contribution to rebuilding the party organisation and also for stopping the party from conceding own-goals but he says that where he and his party are weakest "is in articulating what Fine Gael stand for-other than being anti-the current government".  At some point, Coleman warns, this will have to be addressed, and platitudes and cliches will not suffice.  Furthermore, a quarter of a century ago, the party under Garret Fitzgerald was on the brinks of achieving electoral parity with Fianna Fáil and was about to win many new voters with seemingly radical social and economic policies.  There is no such innovation from Fine Gael these days in terms of either policy or vision.

In the Sunday Times Alan Ruddock makes a similar point when he says that

for all the bluster of the past two weeks, with the posturings of the alternative government prompting vicious putdowns from the government parties, the next election will be fought on comfortable territory. Whose smile do you prefer? Who looks more trustworthy? Who can run the economy? Your choice will be between personalities — Enda or Bertie, Pat or Mary — rather than a real choice between alternate visions of how this country should be governed.

Here again is the triumph of process over policy, born out of a desire not to offend anyone. 

I was intrigued to read a piece in the Tribune about the possibility of Fine Gael hiring the almost legendary American pollster Stan Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research Inc.(see also the Democracy Corps site)  Could they actually afford him?  I'd much prefer Greenberg to Fianna Fáil's US import Bob Shrum, a man who allegedly did more to foul up last year's Kerry campaign than anyone else.

Comments

[Kevin]

Gerry, I'm getting a fair few hits from people typing in your name in Google. They are all from different computers in different countries. Just curious to know what you've been up to that has caused the said searches?