How do candidates stay motivated when they know their chances of victory are at best extremely slim?
THERE ARE, it is reckoned, some 35,000 households in Dublin Central. This adds up to a lot of front doors for Paul O’Loughlin of the Christian Solidarity Party (CSP) and his election team of two to knock on during a short campaign.
O'Loughlin's hopes of making even a half-decent dent on that number are not helped by the fact that he hasn't managed to get time off from his job with a major city-centre retailer. When The Irish Timescatches up with him on a bright weekend morning he is out by himself, going door to door.
Most of the doorbells went unanswered and, while all of the encounters he had with voters were polite, just one elderly woman even vaguely committed to giving him “something” on Friday. He is still upbeat though, insisting the public’s anger and appetite for change has significantly improved his position.
There is little hard evidence, however, to suggest he will do much better than the 203 first preferences he got in the 2009 byelection, his third Dáil campaign. On his first outing he got 366 votes (1 per cent of the total) but then he previously had up to eight people pounding the streets.
“People get disillusioned,” he admits, “but I try not to give into it. I’m fighting for something that I believe in and being realistic about it. I wouldn’t think I could get in but I’ll give it a good shot.”
The CSP has sought to seize on the poor economic situation in an attempt to broaden its appeal and O’Loughlin seeks to move the conversation on doorsteps quickly from the core “pro-life, pro-family, pro- marriage” message on to proposals to oppose cutbacks, increased taxes on the poor and the bank bailout.
He struggles to get that far most of the time, though, and can only look on a little enviously as a team of Maureen O’Sullivan’s canvassers sweeps past him down a street he is working one door and leaflet at a time. “She has 100 people working for her seven days a week,” he estimates ruefully. “If I had that many people I’d get in too.” Not long afterwards he heads off to work.
His prospects may not be too bright but O’Loughlin did at least know what he was getting into. Claire Cullinane in Cork East, on the other hand, still sounds a little taken aback to be a candidate for the People’s Convention. She discovered the organisation only in November; 11 days before Christmas she attended the meeting at which it was decided to contest the election.
“The election came far too quickly for us,” she says, “but we had a decision to make: whether to disband or press ahead and use this as a springboard for next time when we’ll be ready.”
Cullinane, who describes herself as a motivational speaker and trainer who has worked extensively with women’s groups, has just left a shopping centre where she had been canvassing alone when 15 people working for a rival candidate arrived. “I was swamped,” she says, “but that’s the reality of it. I’m without a party, I’m without a machine, it’s almost impossible.”
However, she adds: “I am under no illusions that every vote we get this time is evidence that we’re on the right track.”
In Sligo-North Leitrim, independent film maker and Green Party candidate Johnny Gogan makes no bones about his prospects. “I’m completely realistic about this,” he says. “If we can improve on our low base in the constituency then it will have been an achievement.”
The numbers don’t look too promising. Despite polling well nationally in 2007, the party took just 1,209 votes in the constituency when Brian Scanlon ran. Now the Greens are battling to hold on to any of their six Dáil seats.
Gogan’s record as a local election candidate in the Dromahair ward, where he has twice polled fewer than 150 first preferences, scarcely suggests he is capable of bucking the trend.
Add to that the traditional dominance of the big parties in the area, an impending deadline in relation to a film he is making for TG4 and the principled but generally unpopular stands he has made on issues such as the centralisation of national cancer treatment services, and it seems a very tall order. Still, Gogan is undeterred.
“Really, the aim here when we started was to put in a show and it has been more than that. Nationally, it would be a major setback [the party’s public funding would be hit] if the Greens dropped below 2 per cent and so I wanted to contribute on that front but then there is also the reward of hearing other parties come out with what have long been Green policies.
“Fine Gael, who are about to be a party of government, are talking about creating thousands of jobs through investment in renewable energy. That’s major progress for us because the Greens are a movement rather than just another political party. For us it’s about winning the war rather than the battle.”
