Well, if this is a short campaign, it’s hard to imagine what a long one would feel like. Drapier was musing last week on how or when this would all take off. Even with the finishing line now in sight there is precious little movement. Is this stasis a kind of new normal?
More than one undecided voter responded to Drapier's entreaties last week by promising to watch the leaders' debate, and then decide. But was anyone the wiser after it? It was better than the TV3 effort certainly, but the consensus of "no clear winner" was doubtless correct.
Neither have all the launches, press events, manifestos and set-pieces shifted anyone, it seems. Battle-hardened colleagues from all sides agreed this week they might as well never have happened. But the daily beast has to be fed, even when the fodder is in short supply.
As usual, the broadcast debates and much of the coverage have centred around the party leaders. One of the effects has been that strong performers – in all of the parties – have not had a chance to break through. It may be less of a problem for Fianna Fáil than for the rest, but it is a cause for anxiety in each of the other three backrooms this weekend. Drapier wonders whether the parties (and the viewers) might be better off using a nominated representative for the set-piece debates, in the way some of the smaller outfits could last Monday.
Or maybe when parties are deciding on their leaders they should think as much about media skills as popularity among the party faithful.
Slogan falling flat
The business of elections as a marketing exercise may have taken a battering this time too. “Let’s keep the recovery going” should have had a strong appeal, but it has fallen fairly flat. Simple messages are great, and no one doubts the fact of the recovery. But if a slogan begs another question, or more than one question, it starts to implode.
Questions such as, “Right so, can I have my (pension) money back?”, or “my pay cut restored now (not gradually)”, or “why have we got homeless people on the streets?”
That there are reasonable answers to all of these questions doesn’t make it any easier. Getting people from their own personal predicament to working out who should make up the next government is the real challenge for all of us. The Government parties have it hardest – reaping the bitter harvest of a failure to level frankly and regularly with the people early on in the crisis. The mantra was that the people would flock back once they saw it all working. But there’s no sign of that, not yet anyway.
The main Opposition parties have it a little easier, but perhaps not much, because there are big credibility problems for both of them – in one case because of its role in the crash (memories are not that short), and in the other for a host of reasons, not least Gerry’s difficulties in explaining the basics of his own tax policies.
Through all of this adversity and uncertainty, Drapier ploughs bravely on. And no one should forget that this is first and foremost an exercise in human interaction, persuasion and cajolement. It is an emotional roller coaster. If a candidate is not sleep-deprived, edgy and a nightmare to live with, they are probably a no-hoper at this stage. Families take the brunt of it all. As Patsy McGarry pithily observed recently in these pages, they are “the unacknowledged slaves to someone else’s dream”.
Catching the mood
Writing this before embarking on the final weekend’s canvass, Drapier is trying to catch the mood and pitch to the undecided. There is a real urge out here to settle some scores, and that will definitely cost the Government parties many seats. How many is the question. Everyone took a hit in this crisis. There are arguments about who suffered most, but one truth endures. The country will need a government after this election, and the people know that.
Can the Government parties roll with the blows and survive? Drapier thinks they might. For all Micheál’s energy, his party cannot seem to break 20 per cent in the polls. And Gerry’s super-gaffes this week will help tie his outfit to the mid-teens.
Which leaves the Independents who, by their very nature, will crave attention for their constituencies. They will happily trade a vote to keep them – and all of us – warm for another couple of years at least.
By then Drapier predicts that at least three, or maybe all four of the main party leaders will be history.