FUNNY things, general elections; while the politicians run scared and the public frets about expected tax concessions, there are those who wholeheartedly enjoy the entire spectacle - and none more than broadcaster John Bowman.
"I absolutely love them; I adore the challenge there is in handling the instant and multiple information appearing. There is always some new marginal, one or two constituencies which become marginal on the night. If you wait, the election will tell itself, but it is so much more exciting to attempt to risk reading the probable result before it happens.
When he faces the cameras at the start of RTE's Election 97 at 3 p.m. on Saturday, as co-anchor with Brian Farrell, Bowman will know he is likely to be still on air up to 14 hours later. It is his tenth time covering a general election and his fourth for television. Having anchored the three elections in 1981 and 1982 for radio, in 1987 he was scheduled not only to anchor on radio but - also to co present on television.
"It was the most agonising decision of my professional career, and although I loved anchoring the radio coverage, I opted for television. Television is the bigger challenge because of the technology and the graphics, diagrams etc. An election results programme calls on all the various skills, the ability to handle information, to analyse, suggest, anticipate and not to be taken by surprise." Comparing the experience to chess, he says "I don't play chess, but it is like playing 41 games which are going on simultaneously."
On what are invariably tense occasions, Bowman's rigorous, civilising presence comes into its own. He fills the inevitable gaps with humanising observations about the candidates and the constituencies as he anticipates, explains and interprets the developments. "Candidates will tell you, you can never have too many votes, and on an election results programme you can never have too much homework."
Not only did the divorce referendum say a huge amount about the transformation of Irish society, its cliffhanger result also produced exciting television. As the dust settled and the arguments continued, many still remember Bowman's comment: "Hello divorce, goodbye de Valera."
Few broadcasters enter a studio better prepared than Bowman. It is this thorough preparation, which he believes is as intuitive as it is academic, which has earned him the respect of his audience. An intense, serious man, it is difficult to imagine him relaxing. In a profession in which personality plays so large a role, he has never sold his, remaining polite, remote, in control. Considering the unabashed delight he gets from such marathons, he must have been ecstatic that, after his debut as an election anchor in 1981, the following year the government obliged him by collapsing twice.
Elections have always interested him. As a boy, cycling to school at Belvedere College in Dublin in the 1950s, he would see elections slowly unfolding through the results appearing on the giant cricket like scoreboard outside the Irish Times office.
"I always found it so exciting - by the time I was coming home, five or six seats would have changed hands." There were no election analysis programmes on radio or television during election campaigns until the late 1960s for fear they would influence voters.
"The impact of broadcasting on our politics is relatively recent; really only since the 1960s. It was a by election in Britain in 1959 which was the first campaign to be reported."
The recent British election created superb television and Bowman says with the enthusiasm most people reserve for cup finals: "The BBC walloped ITV. Peter Snow grabbed the story and told it soonest." Bowman is fascinated with the idea of craft, the specific craft which is an essential part of any occupation. "Ask any craftsmen `how'," he says, "and you begin to have an understanding."
BOWMAN sits in the small court yard like front garden of his Dublin 4 home in Pembroke Lane. He was born in July 1942, just around the corner on Pembroke Road, and says. "I have lived within listening distance of St Bartholomew's all my life."
It is too easy to place him in a specialist political commentator/analyst broadcaster's role. Bowman began his career as a freelance sports journalist while still pursuing the first of two arts degrees begun at Trinity. Having entered university to read English, economics and history for a general degree, he switched to a degree in politics and history. As his Saturday morning radio show suggests, Bowman has a wide ranging interest in popular culture and social history.
Using archive material appeals to him - he is a natural researcher, agrees he has a detective's instincts and has also contributed greatly to RTE's archives with diverse interviews and features about people and events. While covering the elections in South Africa, he recalls interviewing 300 people. "I've found actors to be the trickiest people to interview,", he volunteers, almost as if the thought has just struck him for the first time.
Although it is very sunny, he is wearing a light suit, shirt and tie; his face is slightly sunburnt, his shoelaces are undone. Meticulous, deliberate and serious, he is a very good talker - erudite, reasonable, detached and politely opinionated. His conversation comes complete with an impressive array of historical references and political analogy. "I have always liked the way politics and history are interwoven, I like the kind of cross referencing and mixing of disciplines. It's the same in television, you bring a number of skills to the job."
Speaking about himself is, however, difficult. Bowman is not a natural interviewee: he is more at home with references than personal anecdotes. But there are unexpected, asides, such as his description of a recording of jazz trumpeter Benny Goodman playing Mozart's Clarinet Concerto.
John Bowman and his older sister grew up in a household where politics was often a source of debate between a mother hailing from a solid Cumann na nGael tradition, and a father "who greatly admired Connolly and de Valera". Was de Valera a hero of Bowman's? "No. Not a hero. My heroes would be people like Parnell or John McCormack, or the songs of the 1930s. People like Cole Porter. Irving Berlin or Noel Coward. I have always thought Coward was a genius. I also love Gilbert and Sullivan."
Bowman is a good singer himself, although his performances are now mainly reserved for school reunions. He also enjoys composing parodies. At Belvedere, he was the lead in The Mikado, a role played eight years before him by Tony O'Reilly, "and before that by Gerald Victory".
For Bowman author of De Valera And The Ulster Question 1917-73 (1982), de Valera was a presence. "He was always there. But I didn't see him as a giant. My interest grew out of an awareness on my part that there was something terribly unsatisfactory in a political system which aspired to Irish unity yet pursued policies which were contradictory in that they remained aspirational."
Although Bowman does not warm to de Valera the man, he admires him hugely. He admits to being greatly offended by what he describes as the character assassination of him in Jordan's recent film".
So it was a combination of dissatisfaction and curiosity - and the prompting of Prof Basil Chubb - which led him to write his de Valera book. Based on his doctoral thesis, it took him a decade to complete. It won the Christopher Ewart Biggs Memorial Prize and remains, one of the best selling academic books written about 20th century Irish politics. "I seemed to be writing it for a long time, but I was also working full time."
His thesis argues about the central importance partition as a motivational force played in de Valera's political career: "It was the threat of partition which first prom pled de Valera's involvement in politics, once it had been enacted, it is no exaggeration to state that he spent the remainder of his long public life preoccupied by, it."
Yet in keeping with the multiple ironies of life and particularly politics, de Valera - who once commented he would "regard his career a failure" if Ireland were not united during his lifetime - appeared to preserve the idea of partition. Of the major architects of modern Ireland. Bowman speaks of Lemass's legacy and also Noel Browne's.
"I regret Browne's bitterness and his continuing characterisation of the South as priest ridden long after that had faded, possibly due to himself. But he seemed to be playing to the Northern Unionist gallery where the changes in the South need to be understood."
Is peace in Northern Ireland a possibility? Bowman thinks so. "I think the only way out of the nightmare is to use the Downing Street Declaration, to get all party inclusive talks, provided there is a ceasefire. The Dail parties are agreed on consent as is the SDLP - so you could say Ireland is overwhelmingly agreed on consent. Sinn Fein's position on the form of words remains problematical. But there has never been a moment in Irish history where there was greater unity than now.
HE views the Downing Street Declaration as "a great achievement which has created breathing space". According to him, if we accept that unity is only possible by consent, there will be a compromise. If the compromise settlement is put to the Irish people North and South on the one day, and is approved, that becomes self determination by the Irish people of this generation we will make our own history. It also undermines those Republicans who claim a mandate from the SF result in the 1918 election."
Wary of being seen as overly academic, he stresses. I'm a journalist working in broadcasting; I like the fact that as a journalist I have the freedom to pursue topics and subjects which interest me. Yet his approach to questions is thoughtful and considered - almost patrician - as is his chairing of the discussion programme, Questions and Answers.
Considering the small circle from which it draws its panellist's, the show, for all its popularity and estimated 450,000 weekly viewers, does suffer from a feeling of "rounding up the usual suspects". More important is the undeniable fact that many of the politicians appearing on it use it as a platform for point scoring, and with the approach of any impending election, many of them attempt to indulge in party, political broadcasts. Last Sunday night's edition, the last before polling day tomorrow, revealed heightened tension. Bowman defends the programme, praising its editor, Betty Purcell, for her "courage and fairness".
But aren't the people cynical about politicians? "They are becoming increasingly so. They don't have enough regard for their politicians. They don't want to fend their elections. Yet at the same time, they don't want the political parties to seek fending from business interests." Much of the bias, point scoring and the more personality based attacks tend to feature in the live performances on television and radio.
"The print medium is a colder one," he says, "but hugely important. Consider that in all our newspapers since the 1980s, there has been a daily 600 column inches devoted to election coverage - no Western democracy can match this. But I believe the spin doctors are getting better at spinning, and journalists and broadcasters may need to review what decides what is printed and broadcast during an election campaign."The voters, he feels, can also be rather inattentive. He believes the repetitions of inaccuracies "make the people believe them". Claiming to be "in favour of a thoroughly sceptical, analytical approach to politics", he also believes in giving politicians a hard time "based on an informed viewing of the policy options available".
Opinionated yet politic and careful, he nevertheless is quite forceful on the subject of the exploitation of politics for entertainment. "I do resent the way some broadcasters with very little interest in politics only highlight the scandals and encourage cynicism."
Bowman is sympathetic, to politicians: "Too many voters tend to see their TD as a social worker." He sees proportional representation as "a Very Well intentioned system" but with "a serious down side", as marginal multi seat constituencies are very competitive. "Very often this has the effect of making sitting career politicians in the bigger parties, to borrow Cyril Connolly's phrase, `enemies of promise'. They don't encourage bright young, up and coming TDs, lest in winning the extra seat they become a threat.
Few things are certain in life, but while it may not be possible to predict the composition of the 28th Dail, it is possible to suggest that come 5 a.m. on Sunday, Bowman will not have begun to wilt. His uncynical curiosity and excitement should sustain him as his anticipation yields to analysis.
Those qualities have sustained him. Throughout a career which has managed to juggle broadcasting and dealing with the issues and culture of the moment with his passionate interest in the politics which have created the history of 20th century Ireland. "It's the anticipation I enjoy, being able to look behind the results and see not only the politics but the history that is embedded in every election."
