Cox was the bluebloods’ blueblood, but they don’t understand Fine Gael pedigree
IT WAS a premeditated rout of the armchair generals.
The backroom boys may know all about high politics, but they know precious little about their party.
Respect your betters? That approach was never going to work with Fine Gael. The failed heave against Enda Kenny showed that.
Gay Mitchell knew this when he decided to fight for the party’s presidential nomination.
And he was right.
Never mind the vision thing.
“I am a Fine Gael person to the bone,” he told delegates.
Pat Cox, an excellent candidate, could never win.
Mairéad McGuinness, who cannot claim the same lineage as Mitchell, suffered collateral damage.
In this battle of the Fine Gael bluebloods, the people who knock on doors and stick leaflets through letterboxes and have the guts to put their names before the public reclaimed the title.
The party leader got one thing right in this: whatever he may have thought in private, Enda refused to get involved.
If his party can be as good at settling the economy as it is at settling scores we’ll be waving goodbye to the IMF in no time . . .
There was a strange atmosphere in the selection convention in Dublin’s Regency Hotel: the three candidates posing for the cameras in a clinch of forced bonhomie; Enda, edgy and aloof; Ministers mingling with wedding guests in the foyer talking about everything but the vote; delegates keeping their counsel.
The candidates had their posters out. Mairéad McGuinness even brought a life-size cardboard cut-out of herself which she tied to the steps at the hotel entrance. Upon closer inspection, the head had been reattached with blue European Parliament sticky tape.
Gay Mitchell was content to include a photo of himself with seven cardboard cut-outs in his campaign leaflet. This was taken when he was campaigning for Europe in 2004. He hawked them around for a while but stopped when people started saying they couldn’t tell the difference between the cardboard and the candidate.
Pat Cox steered clear. Not his style.
Gay was first to arrive and he immediately set about working the hall. Mairéad was next and she immediately set about working the car park.
Pat made quite an entrance. Surrounded by supporters, he high-stepped up the driveway like your embarrassing dad at a Glee audition.
When he saw Mairéad, he grabbed her and gave her kiss. Mairéad, ever the pro, spun him around and kissed him again, for the cameras.
Gay emerged and the trio scuttled up the road, composed themselves, turned and then marched jauntily towards the crowd and the photographers.
All we were missing was the yellow brick road. “We’re off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz!” But where was Dorothy? Enter Enda, a smile on his face. “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Roscommon any more!”
True, nobody mentioned the hospital situation, which must have been a welcome break.
“Outstanding candidates,” he kept repeating. “Outstanding.”
So they all repaired indoors and sat down.
The proposers and seconders said why their candidate would most definitely win the presidency for Fine Gael, Ireland and the world. After their glowing endorsements, delegates were reassured that, no matter who won, the party would be ably represented by a cross between Mother Teresa and Daniel O’Connell.
Minister Frances Fitzgerald was particularly good, although after she spoke of her man’s “straight-talking urban grittiness”, we were rather hoping to see Robert de Niro take to the podium. Instead, we got Gay.
Or Fine Gayel Mitchell, the true blue. Fine Gayel Mitchell, man and boy. Did he mention he joined the party at the age of 16? Yes. Quite a lot.
“I am a Fine Gael person to the bone,” he said, adding: “As president, I will be an Irish person to the bone”. In fairness, they all had had 15 minutes to fill.
Pat Cox produced a far higher standard of presidential guff. You could see why the Mount Street mandarins were so keen on him.
“I am thrilled to be standing here today,” he began, but, ominously for him, the only round of applause he got was when he said he would wholeheartedly support the winner if he wasn’t successful.
McGuinness’s speech was far more businesslike as she quoted election percentages and figures to bolster her case. One wondered if she was worried that the voters may have had enough of touchy-feely female candidates.
Pat said he was “cut from very common but sturdy cloth”, but it was Fine Gayel Mitchell who trumped them all with his party pedigree, allied to his humble beginnings in Inchicore. Even Enda brought this up at the press conference afterwards, as if Inchicore is Ireland’s equivalent of the Black Hole of Calcutta.
Fine Gayel Mitchell laid it on with a trowel. “My life’s journey has taken me from the home of my widowed mother in Inchicore to the Dáil, the Mansion House, Iveagh House and Brussels,” he quivered, before producing his Mary Robinson candle-in-the- window moment.
From the study in Áras an Uachtaráin (he’s been there), you can see the lights of the CIÉ engineering works where he had his first job. And when he is in the Áras, he will look out on those lights and they will be a constant reminder of where he came from.
“He’ll need a ladder,” snorted a party colleague, who has also been in that study.
The count didn’t take long. The result was announced quickly, without ceremony. Mairéad McGuinness had to race back into the hall to catch it. Gay’s FG genes carried the day.
To cheers from the delegates, the victorious candidate was mobbed by supporters.
On the platform, the Taoiseach applauded, but remained seated. Eventually, Mitchell managed to get to the top table and the two men almost embraced but ended up awkwardly holding hands.
Did the Taoiseach look disgusted? Not particularly, but he seemed detached. He was in good form at the press conference afterwards.
There was widespread approval of the result from delegates. More senior party members, privately, expressed shock. Pat Cox was the bluebloods’ blueblood, but they don’t understand Fine Gael pedigree. Little Scrappy-do from Inchicore did.
“We are the hierarchy, the parliamentary party, executive council and the councillors – and they’ve re-established themselves today and made a very firm point as to who makes the decisions,” he said, delivering a lesson to the armchair generals.
They may have been right about Cox, but party before presidency won out in the end.
For the real bluebloods, it’s a tribal thing.
