FINE GAEL presidential candidate Gay Mitchell has backed down from a confrontation with a fellow hopeful and changed his campaign slogan to “Understands our past, believes in our future”.
Independent candidate Mary Davis and Mr Mitchell had selected the same slogan, “Pride at home, respect abroad” and have been involved in a stand-off over who selected it first for almost a fortnight.
A spokeswoman for Ms Davis said there had been no contact between the two camps on the matter. Mr Mitchell’s director of elections, Charlie Flanagan, confirmed Mr Mitchell had changed his slogan to avoid conflict with Ms Davis.
Mr Flanagan said: “We weren’t going to have a difference of opinion or any incident. This isn’t about slogans really, it’s about the next president. We don’t wish to get distracted by slogans. We don’t wish to enter into any conflict with Mary Davis.”
Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, the latest entrant into the presidential contest, is using the slogan “Towards a new Republic”.
The party used the same slogan at its recent ardfheis and at conferences it hosted in Dublin and Cork in June.
The Labour Party’s candidate Michael D Higgins is using the slogan “The President who will do us proud”. Independent candidate Seán Gallagher is going with “Let’s put our strengths to work”.
