‘Leo Lift’ won’t add seats in a general election as Varadkar lacks ground hurlers as Varadkar lacks ground hurlers

LEO Varadkar’s biggest party problem ahead of the next general election will play out in the Premier Hall in Thurles tonight.

Fine Gael is high on the hog of the ‘Leo Lift’ with a bounce in some polls putting it well ahead of Fianna Fáil. However, the Taoiseach is running ahead of his party as his popularity ratings are higher.

The only game in town for the Opposition is the personal targeting of Varadkar – not Fine Gael and not the Government.

Hence, Micheál Martin, Mary-Lou McDonald and Brendan Howlin spending a fortnight complaining about spin in an effort to damage Varadkar, while the rest of the country is recovering from the worst weather in 35 years. Leinster House can appear distant from the reality on the ground.

But this is politics.

Not too many in Fine Gael are concerned about fallout from the Strategic Communications Unit. What there is genuine concern about is the party’s ability to produce the calibre of candidates who can capitalise on any national rise in support.

The snow storm resulted in the party’s selection convention in Tipperary being postponed.

Ironically, the old Tipp North and South often served as a bellweather for the party’s fortunes across the country. None more so than in the 2016 election, where it conspired to enter the campaign with two sitting TDs and end it with none.

Anything up 1,500 party members will be in the hall in Thurles tonight to pick from seven contenders.

There’s a mix of old and young, male and female, experienced and novice, urban and rural.

The colourful line-up ranges across councillor Michael Fitzgerald, who was on the ticket in 1982, fellow councillors Mary-Hanna Hourigan and Michael Murphy, former TD Noel Coonan, Mary Newman, a sister of outspoken Dublin Bay South TD Kate O’Connell, Garret Ahearn, Simon Coveney’s former aide and the son of the late former TD Theresa Ahearn, and Shelagh Marshall, an accountant looking to the next local elections.

Fitzgerald is tipped to come out on top of the first count, but may not have enough beyond that, while

Those fellahs have never brought cattle to the mart. And if they did, they’d hang the price on the cow

Ahearn is the dark horse due to his door-to-door canvass of activists.

It’s all very well having an engaged membership, but the impact among the voters is less evident. Not only is there not a clear favourite to emerge, but there is a question mark over whether whoever does will have the wherewithal to take a seat. A second candidate will be added. The prospect of Michael Lowry Jnr returning to the party fold his father left in disgrace a generation ago looms large.

Tipperary is a microcosm of Varadkar’s problems.

Right across the country there is an absence of credible second candidates capable of winning seats. Party insiders speak with horror of the prospect of high-profile ministers and TDs getting poll-topping votes and their running mates being miles behind, incapable of catching up.

Without a local election, Varadkar won’t have fresh blood to put on the ticket. There is also a sense he is indebted to TDs and senators who elected him, so he won’t wield the axe on dead wood.

Examples of Varadkar’s second candidate syndrome arise in Cork East, Cork South-West, Kerry, Mayo Sligo-Leitrim, Donegal, Cavan-Monaghan, Meath West, Kildare North and Kildare South. Even in Varadkar’s territory of Dublin, there remain doubts over the plan in Dublin West, Dublin Bay North and Dublin South-West.

And there is little confidence in Varadkar or his metropolitan sidekicks having the nous to get to grips with the issue with a ruthless selection strategy.

“There’s no ground hurlers. Those fellahs have never brought cattle to the mart. And if they did, they’d hang the price around the cow’s neck on the way in,” a party insider told the Irish Independent.

Seats aren’t won with Facebook posts. Fine Gael won’t be rushing to the polls until this problem is sorted.