Presidential dogfight will drive good people away from entering public life

ALL the pundits expect the presidential election campaign to turn dirty. It is universally accepted that the venture into Áras politics will end in tears for at least one of the candidates. Most certainly five of them will be disappointed when the votes are counted and the result announced on October 27.

But why does it have to be dirty? Why are we so willing to see people destroyed as they seek to become the First Citizen of the State and take on a role that demands they represent the best about us to ourselves and the world?

I remember visiting a friend in New York a number of years ago. An Irishman, born and bred in this country, he emigrated after college and put his professional construction qualifications to good use starting his own business within months of setting foot on Broadway.

He was a young man going places. He had his own apartment in the city and could navigate his way effortlessly around subway, highway and freeway.

On the night I arrived, we went out on the town and I noticed he wasn’t drinking. This came as a big surprise; in Ireland he was the party animal of party animals but in the Big Apple he was a rock of sense. Over a glass of still water, he explained that in New York, in his business, people didn’t just compete, their intention was to put their competitors out of business.

In order to stay ahead of the posse, one had to keep one’s wits and faculties about one at all times, which included being first up every morning with a clear head. I was struck by his clarity, his focus and his drive.

In some ways, the race for the Áras is like that; you either win or get destroyed. From now until polling day, every morning these candidates get up, they can expect to read anything about themselves in the newspapers.

They can expect their phones to buzz incessantly with tweets and retweets about things they said or did or omitted to say or do. Meanwhile, people they had long forgotten and people they would prefer to forget will line up to post unsavoury memories or unf lattering remarks on Facebook. Why is this campaign so vicious and visceral in comparison to all others?

It is said that academic politics are the dirtiest and most cutting of all because the stakes are so low. While it might be neither right nor fair to say the same in regard to the office of the President, nevertheless, because the role is so proscribed and constricted perhaps there is little to talk about except the personalities.

The campaign is liable to explode into life when trawls through the candidates’ pasts finds that one of them has smoked something or other (and inhaled) at the back of a bus in Termonfeckin or was charged for public urination outside the marquee in Drumlish.

While more serious issues could emerge, it is doubtful that any matters of interest to the gardaí will surface over the awful four weeks of the campaign. If they do, at least there won’t be a need to spend money on ‘Wanted’ posters, there will be plenty hanging around.

If the campaign follows the same downward trajectory as that taken by previous presidential contests, it will leave a poor taste in everyone’s mouth and, more depressingly, will succeed in discouraging a lot of people from entering public life.

With local, European and even a general election looming on the horizon, there are possibly good people around the country contemplating a run for political office. There may well be people on the cusp of a decision having been persuaded by one political party or another to throw their hats into the electoral ring.

If the presidential campaign is as pulverising as the pundits expect, these individu-

THERE’S PART OF ME THAT WANTS TO APPLY A SELF-IMPOSED NEWS BLACKOUT OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS AND AVOID THE EXCESSES OF THIS NON-EVENT

als may very well think twice or three times before having anything to do with public life.

Members of my tribe of scribes like nothing better than elections. I suppose there is a breed of the sports journalist in all of us; we love the chase, the falls, the rising above, the fouls, the penalties, the own goals, the smiles of the victor and the tears of the vanquished. Like all sporting occasions, when it’s over and the competitors are exhausted, we are already salivating about the next contest.

I, for one, am not relishing the prospect as the current circus gets under way. Oh, I know, some people will be quick to point out that this is not a circus, it’s an exercise in democracy and we should cherish every opportunity we get to go to the polls.

This is one opportunity I am not relishing or cherishing. There’s part of me that wants to apply a self-imposed news blackout for the next few weeks, to spare myself the ridiculous excesses of the non-event.

Maybe I’ll be proved wrong, maybe the contest will be riveting but I fear it will be so for all the wrong reasons — for the car crashes, the bleeps, the blunders, the mis-speaking. Perhaps the plethora of verbose visions, as meaningful as the superlatives in a sun-holiday brochure, will act as an anaesthetic.

At the end of it all, we should have one president, five bruised egos and six pairs of sore feet — if that’s as good as it gets, I suppose it won’t be too bad.