Irish Presidency

Just because others should have been dangling with him, doesn't make him President material.

At this stage I'd nearly vote for Dana if she got nominated.
 
harry said:
My last comments on this thread......I have no intention of getting involved in a Uk v Irish slanging match.

Grow up Luke[/

If you can't handle your views being challenged you shouldn't be on the Internet.
Your grow up comment is something I would expect from a teenage girl.
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Betfair has one with €54,000 in the pot so far. A 118% over-round book though, I guess because of the very strange fact that Dana isn't included in that Betfair market. :blink:

All the 3.5 -- 4.2% Lay for David Norris has been taken tho' .............. snaffled by me in the past few days. :whistle:
(Currently 5.0 and rising).
 
chroniclandlord said:
Anyone except Norris. He is a man that I've always found insufferable to listen to.
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Ditto.
What I cannot understand is his topping all/most of the opinion polls. I just cannot see the "plain people" 0f Ireland-- the small farmer in Leitrim, the conservative-minded shopkeeper in West Kerry, etc etc -- giving him a Number 1 ( or a Number 2 for-that-matter). :D
Independent TD Mattie McGrath had a meeting with his election team/supporters two days ago. Mattie said "I wanted to test the waters about nominating Senator Norris -- I was scalded"). :)

The man might even be lucky to gain a nomination following his failure to secure the support of Cork Co Council in the past hour following on upon his failure to get similar last evening from Dublin South Council.
 
That 11/10 is a seriously good bet if you have the patience to sit it out. All the polls have Norris and McGuinness as poison for transfers. All Michael D Higgins has to do is not write any letters to Israel or kill any British soldiers and he's home and hosed.
 
SlimChance said:
That 11/10 is a seriously good bet if you have the patience to sit it out. All the polls have Norris and McGuinness as poison for transfers. All Michael D Higgins has to do is not write any letters to Israel or kill any British soldiers and he's home and hosed.
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Thats the closest thing to buying money I have seen in a while. Would have called him a 4/7 shot.
 
It's all a bit of a farce. I can understand the need to nominate candidates to prevent any old joe soap from running but this whole drawn out nomination saga is painful really. Surely there must be a better way.

I have always been very much a fan of David Norris but I think he has handled this whole letters scandal appallingly. Even if he has nominated I find it very hard to see him winning it at this stage.

I don't have any strong opinions on the others.
 
Some sage comment in the Irish Times:

Dana is all kinds of everything to Ulster Protestants in Áras race

NEWTON EMERSON

NEWTON'S OPTIC: WHO WOULD Ulster Protestants vote for in the presidential election, if we had a vote and were forced at gunpoint to use it? The answer is certainly Dana, for the following excellent reasons:

1 Dana and Martin McGuinness were born within a year of each other and grew up in the same working-class housing estate in Derry, yet Dana did not join the IRA. This proves there was never any social, political or historical inevitability about Martin McGuinness joining the IRA.

2 Dana has murdered several songs, but always on the record.

3 Dana was actually born in London, so a brief biography of her childhood can get the words “London” and “Derry” quite close together, as in “London-born Derry singer Dana”. Technically, this also makes her even more British than Mary McAleese.

4 Dana is a proper Catholic. Proper Protestants respect this. It’s lapsed Catholics we don’t trust.

5 Dana’s husband was involved in the Catholic Church’s charismatic renewal movement in the 1970s, making him one accident of birth away from being a proper Protestant himself.

6 After her marriage, Dana set up home in Rostrevor, about as far away from Derry as it is possible to get while remaining in Northern Ireland. Any Protestant will find this understandable. By a remarkable coincidence, Mary McAleese also set up home in Rostrevor, but somehow she made it look a bit showy.

7 Dana has had a very successful career as a US-based Christian recording artist, connecting her to a hugely important Ulster Protestant subculture that everyone else finds a bit mental.

8 Dana has performed in three Royal Variety Shows, beginning in 1988, a full decade before Mary McAleese first met Queen Elizabeth. In 1995, in the space of a week, she performed separately for Pope John Paul II, president Bill Clinton and Queen Elizabeth. Admittedly, she has not performed for Nelson Mandela, but neither has she compared herself to Nelson Mandela. That would be nauseating.

9 Dana has never endorsed, nor been endorsed by, the UDA.

10 Dana appeared in the Best of British Variety Tour 2010 alongside Paul Daniels, The Krankies, The Grumbleweeds, Syd Little and Christopher Biggins. As an exercise in cultural outreach, this was more courageous and personally difficult than any number of meetings with the UDA.

11 Dana is a Eurovision winner who became an anti-European politician, then ran for the European Parliament. Once again, note the parallel with Martin McGuinness’s “journey” and yet the absence of a single body in the road.

12 Dana opposes contraception, which may increase the number of Catholics. But she also opposes divorce, so they should all be suitably miserable.

13 Unlike a certain other candidate, who has complained about “west Brits” in the media, Dana has complained about “intellectuals” in the media. Suspicion of intellectuals is a strongly shared cultural value (see “US-based Christian recording artist”, above.)

14 Although she always describes herself as being from Ireland, Dana’s website contains three references to “Northern Ireland”. Try finding even one on MartinForTheAras.ie.

15 Dana has recorded several singles written specifically for an Ulster Protestant audience. Hits include No Road Back, A Ticket to Nowhere, Who Put the Lights Out and There’s Nothing You Can Do to Change My Mind .
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