Two smooth operators but who has the edge to win the next election?
WHEN the Dáil reconvenes after the next general election, either Leo Varadkar or Micheál Martin will be taoiseach. There are similarities between the two men but they differ greatly in style, personality, background and ideology. Unless a freak row emerges, Fianna Fáil will support Fine Gael in the confidence-and-supply arrangement until at least March 2019.
In that period, one of them must convince the electorate that he should be taoiseach.
So how do they compare?
PARTY STRENGTH
VARADKAR:
Varadkar’s Fine Gael increased by three percentage points to 30% in the most recent opinion poll, while Fianna Fáil increased by two points to 26%. This leaves Varadkar some way from forming a stable coalition with a smaller party. Fine Gael doesn’t have strong candidates to avail of the improved rating. The party apparatus withered during Enda Kenny’s long goodbye, and the schedule of a modern taoiseach allows little time for touring local organisations to rebuilt it. The party is also demoralised after Election 2016, when it lost 26 seats. He must revive morale.
Much of this work will fall to party general secretary Tom Curran, who’s near retirement age. Curran was damaged by a court case taken against FG by exminister John Perry. But he has proven himself in the past.
MARTIN:
Fianna Fáil improved its share of the vote in 2016 to 24.3% (from 17.4% in 2011) and increased its seats from 21 to 44. Martin and party general secretary Seán Dorgan have spent years rebuilding a party apparatus that had degenerated during the crash years. Fianna Fáil is a more community based movement than Fine Gael. Most crucially, it has momentum and freshness. It has a larger stable of young candidates with people like Catherine Ardagh and Paul McAuliffe very likely to take seats in Dublin. If the general election was held after the local and Europeans in 2019 Fianna Fáil would have even more candidates blooded. Candidate selection appears more progressed in the party. Fianna Fáil remains hampered by the brand damage done between 2008 and 2011. The party has advanced little in the polls since 2011, from 24% to 26%.
WOULD YOU HAVE A PINT WITH THIS MAN?
VARADKAR:
Leo will be a unique Taoiseach. And not because of the more obvious distinguishing traits, that he is gay and of Indian descent. If successful, he will be the first socially gauche taoiseach to do it. A ministerial friend of his told me that he observed a child run towards Leo at Croke Park after Dublin won the All-Ireland football final. The child sought a hug but Leo didn’t know what to do. Said the minister: ‘He flinched and gave the kid a Kenny-like thumbs-up.’ Yet Varadkar may show that we’ve matured beyond the back-slapping, ward-boss types. He is funny and engaging one on one, and people find him exotic on the canvass. His office gives him the elevated status.
MARTIN:
He entered the Dáil via the 1989 snap election called by Haughey.
In those 28 years he has learned from Haughey, Albert Reynolds, Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen that to retain the common touch is essential for a taoiseach. Martin, who often gives off an air of intellectual superiority, is warm and funny on the canvasses I have observed. He buys sausages and ice cream (though I noticed he avoids eating the ice cream), is solicitous to the old ladies and talks football (mainly GAA) to the young men. He is an old-style consummate campaigner and networker.
STYLE
VARADKAR:
Varadkar has slimmed down and watches what he eats. He wears well-fitting dark suits and cuts a stylish figure on the world stage. In the press gallery in the Dáil we are given an unforgiving view of every taoiseach – I noticed on Tuesday that he’s losing quite a bit of hair. He’s a great man for the fun runs. At 38, youth is his trump card.
MARTIN:
He has always been slim and is a food fascist of legendary status. Many evenings in the Dáil canteen he has gazed accusingly at my mixed grill. He, too, dresses in dark, often navy, suits and blue ties. This look seems to have become a uniform for male politicians across Europe. Time and hairlines wait for no man, and though, at 57 he is young for a frontline politician Varadkar has almost 20 years on him.
COMMUNICATIONS, OLD AND NEW MEDIA
VARADKAR:
Leo is of the generation that grew up with Twitter and Facebook. Varadkar’s slavish commitment to social media has become a standard source of mockery for comedians already. There may be the odd personal spat with figures such as George Hook but if you look closely at Varadkar’s Twitter feed in recent weeks, it’s become very much the boring standard of any run-of-themill politician.
The Taoiseach’s timetable simply doesn’t allow for interaction. He’s a consummate media performer and warm communicator, better on TV than he is in person. However, he must cut out the flashes of temper displayed with Mary Lou McDonald last week.
MARTIN:
He does his bit on social media and has a presence. But I’m yet to be convinced of the effectiveness of a social media for a prospective taoiseach: the majority of voters are of an age profile that wouldn’t be obsessed with social media.
He is peerless in the radio and TV studios but such is his knowledge and the such is his breadth of experience in the Departments of Foreign Affairs, Enterprise and Employment and Health that he can be overbearing. He slaughtered the opposition in the 2016 election debates and Varadkar, who performed badly in the last election, will certainly have to raise his game.
ECONOMIC COHERENCE
VARADKAR:
He is of the right, that much is clear. This year’s budget can’t be a giveaway but from next year, expect to see tax cuts for the middle classes and higher earners. There will be no bonanzas for social welfare recipients in the coming years. Fine Gael communicated its economic record badly with all that ‘keep the recovery going’ drivel. Next time, it will be drilled home that Fine Gael brought the country from the Troika to the fastest growing economy in Europe.
MARTIN:
Fianna Fáil, much as this pains the party, may never recover its reputation on economic competence due to the crash. That is the primary reason the party is current stalling in the polls in the mid-20s and what will prevent it from ever hitting the 40% mark again. It was a strange hybrid – it was a party of the left that still looked out for the rich (far more like the Tory Party than Fianna Fáil diehards would admit). Now the left is crowded, and the crash means it must distance itself from the super-rich.
Fianna Fáil’s many positions on Irish Water made it look cynical. It is very difficult to see what Micheál Martin’s Fianna Fáil stands for when it comes to economics. Caring for the squeezed middle and deprived workers gets a party with pretensions for power only so far.
FRONT BENCH
VARADKAR:
Irish politics may be moving towards a cult of leader but it is still a team game. Incumbency helped Fianna Fáil for many years and the same force should help Fine Gael now. Its ministers are household names due to the constant publicity that comes with office. Age is, however, against Frances Fitzgerald, Charlie Flanagan, Richard Bruton and Michael Ring. Leo will have to shake it up before election.
MARTIN:
Fianna Fáil has 23 new TDs, and many of the party’s household names are long gone (this has its advantages). It is a pitfall of opposition but most of Fianna Fáil’s front bench lack national profile. And the confidence-and-supply deal hobbles them because they can’t attack. Barry Cowen, Niall Collins and the extremely proficient Michael McGrath are doing well but they need to make more of an impact.