ie-politics

Spraying perfume on dog turds

The above was a description of the career of pollster Frank Luntz by somebody on The Daily Show.  He certainly does raise the hackles of American liberals as he is so closely associated with a particularly insurgent brand of right wing Republican politics.  On RTE he is presented simply as a pollster, a neutral expert who can use 'scientific' techniques to figure out what moves the floating voter.  But in the US pollsters are intensely partisan and Luntz is a highly articulate and combative figure who has made quite a few enemies.

Now it seems that Luntz has been squeezed out by the current GOP leaders on Capitol Hill, according to this piece recently published in The New Republic online edition.  He will now spend far more time at home in California than in Washington DC.  He is leaving a place where he was very much part of the Republican establishment, where, according to the author of the TNR piece, his "career has been about nothing so much as cheapening language and obscuring honest discussion". 

The Environmental lobby have been particularly incensed by him, which is why it's interesting to read an interview with Luntz on Grist, an Environmental news and commentary site.  Luntz manages to avoid giving too many helpful tips to his adversaries but he does make a couple of interesting points about how to present a case and make it more palatable to the mainstream.

As far as the floating vote is concerned, the mass media is still crucial

Terry Prone is right.  The effective use of radio and television will determine whether politicians can deliver a message that will be understood and that will strike a chord with the voter.  Along with Ivan Yates and Noel Whelan, the head of Carr Communications was observing the latest focus group assembled by RTE's Week in Politics to be prodded and probed by Frank Luntz.  Following up her remarks on the programme in her column in this morning's Irish Examiner she made the following observation:

Voters are busy, preoccupied. Being got-at by texts, mobile phone calls, e-mails, radio programmes, posters, pagers, newspapers and a million other sources of information they may or may not need. This inundation of data, this constant informational noise, means the three essentials of great communication: that it be interesting, understandable and memorable, are more pivotal than ever. If a political communication is not all three, it’s going to die on the vine.

Her remarks were prompted by watching Brian Cowen spouting figures and, in particular, Brendan Howlin's use of words like words like “interdict” and “casualised exploratory sexual acts".   Whether we political obsessives like it or not, most people will not judge what a politician says by content alone but by the form of words, the use of images and metaphors and whether they are arresting or engaging or connect with the personal concerns of the viewer or listener.  Prone reminds us that

TV and radio are delivered in real time, so a listener or viewer who pauses to wonder what “interdicting” means, (because it’s not a word they’ve recently heard over a pint or in the office canteen) loses the rest of the sentence.

So despite all the cutting edge tools like blogs and viral video, which will undoubtedly have some effect, the election will still be decided by the effective use of the traditional mass media.  Political parties will have to carefully choose issues and personalise them in such a way that will connect with the voters.  There are certain issues that lend themselves to this and a good example can be seen in the report in this morning's Irish Independent which highlights the increasing tax gap between single and double income families. 

Other elements in last night's programme are usefully summarised by Cian here.  He forgot to mention that immigration emerged as a spontaneous concern of the group early on - not that they were necessarily hostile to immigrants but they did believe there should be a debate about it.  I found it interesting that many of the group refused to give the government all that much credit for the economy.  It's as if the relatively healthy economy is considered a given and it's now time to move on.  There is definitely scope for the opposition to make inroads if the issues are carefully chosen and the message is crafted in a personalistic and appealing way. 

Reconstructing Government

Noel Whelan remarked in Saturday's Irish Times that the division of cabinet portfolios in the Irish system is "ad hoc and confused".   His remarks were prompted by the British Home Secretary's admission that his department was two large and unwieldy and should be split in two.  Whelan believes that our Department of Justice is similarly disadvantaged:

Not only does our Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform have responsibility for the traditional areas of prisons, policing and the courts, it is also responsible for civil law reform and even for funding of community initiatives on equality. In addition, McDowell's department has a growing role in justice and home affairs co-operation at European level and a role in Northern Ireland policy. In the last decade or so the department has dramatically expanded its reach because immigration policy also falls within its remit - an area which has its own department in many European countries.

I think Whelan is right when he says that there are many flaws in the current carve-up of responsibilities between Irish Government Ministers. Many of our current Ministers head departments which are too large while others have relatively light workloads.  Below the fold is my suggestion for a reconstructed cabinet, followed by a few remarks about the kind of organisational and cultural shifts that are required if ministers are to be more effective.

A certain clarity emerges

When it comes to weighing up various coalition options it seems clear, from Stephen Collins's reading of the TNS/mrbi data, that "the voters are clearly focused on the alternative coalition options being put before them and there are relatively few takers for the Fianna Fáil-Labour option in the poll".  For all his alleged equivocation on the issue, the voters clearly understand Pat Rabbitte's strategy of forcing clarity of choice in the forthcoming election between two competing blocks of parties.  The Labour leader's biggest task will be to try and shift his party off the 11 per cent plateau where it seems stuck.

The Greens could be key to a new government being formed.  If they doubled their representation and Labour made a few more gains, both parties could claim a mandate from the electorate for progressive reform and put together a programme for government that would reflect some of the key concerns of the broad left.  Fine Gael want to be in government and would accept such a programme because they would have no alternative, even if there are elements in it that might not be to their liking.  Labour really ought to be doing much better at this stage and it seem that the party is hoping that the election campaign itself will do the trick.  It's a risky strategy.

Another interesting element that Collins points to is that the new Green supporters that show up in the poll are middle-class women living in Dublin. "The party is particularly attractive to middle-aged women from the ABC1 social class and it also does well among young women from the same social background who are likely to be voting for the first time".  Collins further notes that for a party that is twice as likely to be supported by women than by men, it has no high profile woman TD - although perhaps that will change if Patricia McKenna is elected in Dublin Central, possibly at the expense of Mary Lou McDonald of Sinn Féin. 

The value of opinion polls

The latest poll obviously comes as a relief to the pundits because they can say that the race is on again.  "Gap narrows between alternative coalitions" is the headline in the Irish Times.  The word "kingmakers" is used in relation to Sinn Féin by the Irish Examiner, while the Irish Independent believes that such a role could fall to the Greens.  I think the Indo are nearer the mark.  The Greens have now edged Labour for third place in Dublin and that is probably the most significant element in the poll.  Fine Gael also seems to be gaining a little ground in the capital.  Alex Klemm, the Progressive Gardener, has a highly pertinent post over at Irishelection.com, referring to the potential of Green issues to insinuate themselves into the consciousness of the electorate and the opposition, especially the Greens of course, are likely to make better headway here than the governing coalition.

Anticipating today's poll, John Carroll wondered what was the point of yet another poll:

Whilst the occasional poll is a valuable tool in keeping the polticial classes in touch with the elecotrate outside of election time, the constant proliferation of opinion polls is increasingly frequently agenda setting, meaning the debate is about numbers and reactions to them, rather than anything more useful or worthwhile.

Further to that, it distorts the perception of the parties as the line is spun that certain options are runners, and more are not - seeking to limit the electoral options before anyone ever votes. So, other than acting as a form of political pornography to the hacks out there, what value those this constant polling offer to the Irish electorate?

I have a certain sympathy with the claim that obsession with the horse race element of politics obscures real substantive issues.  Nevertheless, opinion polls can be very useful for political parties that actually want to 'sell'  their policies to the electorate.  Some will recoil against this very notion of political marketing, where voters choose parties like consumers choose products.  Ultimately it depends on the parties themselves.  You can go down the Blairite road by ditching a huge load of ideological baggage, by finding out what the electorate want and giving it to them.  Or you can keep your convictions and try to find out what bits of it are most popular among certain sections of the electorate and base your electoral strategy accordingly.