The X-Factoring Of Politics

Recollecting in shock, one woman described the flash flood that engulfed her Dublin home as being “like a tsunami”’. And it was. Epic downpours gushed off treeless hillsides, minor streams swelled and burst, walls and ditches fell, and all in minutes. Unlike New Orleans, there were no levees to break: this flood rose within the walls. It was terrifying.

‘Tsunami’ is also a workable metaphor for the way presidential candidate Seán Gallagher’s apparently unstoppable victory was swept away. What a strange and amazing trip. The whole campaign was fascinating, exhilarating, infuriating and worrying. Three issues can be identified.
The first of these is to do with the X-Factor-ing of politics. Notwithstanding the pieties with which everyone began, this malign influence emerged within hours. Look again at the various television debates. How Seán Gallagher must have wished he could phone a friend!
Maybe the horse has bolted and there’s nothing we can do. Yes, the right man won, so maybe all’s well that ends well. But I doubt it. We need to question this morphing of entertainment and politics. Perhaps it’s the only way to enliven politics and engage the latest generation of voters. Whether it is or isn’t, we need to think about the meaning and maintenance of democracy in this new dispensation.
The second is to do with the media. One understands the thrill of the chase, the intrigue of the campaign, what Ozzie wine writers call the smell of sweaty saddle. But there are limits. The media now go far beyond reporting and interpreting. They’re newsmakers as well, seeing themselves as arbiters and interpreters of the popular will, as gatekeepers of the popular imagination and affection, as forensic investigators and interrogators, as the furnace through which those foolish enough to seek election will be dragged...
This was a savage campaign, so brutal that many wonder who will ever go for public office in the future.
C’est la vie. But nobody agreed that this would be the way. It’s a self-assumed role, a unilateral contract. And because there are so many excellent journalists at work in print and broadcast media it’s easy to think that it’s okay. But it’s more complex than that.
The idea that the meeja are value-free independent observers is nonsense. There are some shitbag journos too. And there are myriad issues to do with media ownership, as we have seen with the extraordinary revelations about the behaviours of the Murdoch media in the UK and their infestation of political and cultural life.
So, we need to think about that too.
Also, the proponents of the new regime might do well to remember that reports of Seán Gallagher’s doings in and around Fianna Fáil fundraising hadn’t had much impact until Martin McGuinness spear tackled him on Frontline, followed by Glenna Lynch’s equally old-style wraparound confrontation on television and radio.
The third issue is to do with polls. The Hog is not the first to say this, but it should still be said: the polls do much more than reflect public opinion. In the presidential election, the polls were players themselves. There is no other way to interpret Seán Gallagher’s massive secondary surge.
It was the meeja reaction to his first surprise poll showing that drove him to over 30%. They were all over him like flies and suddenly the floating voters, that sought after and much-courted 35%, began to identify him as the ‘independent’ they’d been waiting for. The same meeja that saw themselves as keepers of the public interest abandoned all perspective for a critical week and so the bandwagon gathered pace…
It shouldn’t have happened. It sucked the oxygen out of almost every other candidate’s campaign and artificially inflated Gallagher over all the others. Without those polls who knows what might have happened?
The pollsters and the media that commission them will argue that they are merely reflecting what’s going on in the voters’ minds. But it isn’t so. They’re also interposing between the voters and the candidates. The polls become the story and the story reigns supreme.
See, it shouldn’t matter that election results might surprise. You shouldn’t need to know what everyone is thinking to help you decide. You need to be clear about your own thinking which means the polls are ultimately just more noise in the room. You can argue that it didn’t matter, that – again – the right man won. But suppose he hadn’t? There’s a very strong argument that polls should be banned once an election campaign is formally begun.
But enough of all that, here we are as a new cycle begins and it’s great.
The universal pleasure at Michael D’s victory is a measure of the man. The acknowledgements and concessions of victory were both hugely respectful and enormously affectionate.
There is also, dare one say it, a palpable relief at the outcome.
Michael D will do all the presidential things with thoughtfulness, dignity and, where appropriate! – humour. You can take the compassion and inspiration as read. But he’s a man of great openness, curiosity and intelligence and ideas will be central to his presidency. He will be a president with whom artists, writers, musicians and actors will be right at home and vice versa.
So too will those with a commitment to human rights and internationalism. Go back to his Hot Press columns and you’ll see. He was out there long before it was the norm, blazing a trail that many followed.
In recent times our presidents have managed to be both of the people and beyond the people. Michael D’s immediate predecessors both transcended initial reservations to become figures of great national and international significance, people who expressed so much on our behalf and who helped us to see the best in us.
Aililiú! We are now fortunate for a third time. As we emerge from that darkest hour that’s just before dawn it will fall to him to be there for us, to listen, reflect and express our bestness, to be the Merlin to the new Camelot. He will also preside over the many anniversaries that will fall over the next seven years. As the dust settles it’s hard to think of anyone who could do these things better.
We wish him the very best.

See also The Message, Page 13.