ON THE DEBATE:While McGuinness and Mitchell took lumps from one another, Michael D stayed calm, writes MIRIAM LORD
THAT WAS some bunfight at the VinB Corral.
The gloves came off last night.
Dana waved the Constitution but didn’t seem to know what lies beneath the covers.
Michael D explained it to her.
David Norris, for one horrifying moment, looked like he was about to burst into song.
Mary Davis wanted to “draw, encourage and inspire”, then complained: “We’re talking a lot of aspirational stuff here.” Seán Gallagher saw a future without leaflets and insisted he had never made a secret of his membership of Fianna Fáil.
Fianna Fáil was missing in action.
“I want a free-flowing debate” said Vincent Browne, chained to a small table for the evening with his victims a safe distance away at the back of the TV3 studio.
He started his Big Fat Presidential Debate with a few gags about the participants. They were quite good, but he could have been reading out the parish death notices for all the reaction it stirred in the nervous and hyped-up candidates.
“No speeches, no talking down the clock, no porkie-pies!” demanded Vinnie, looking at nobody in particular.
You could feel the tension between the seven candidates standing behind their white lecterns, about to sing for their substantial Phoenix Park supper.
Not sure about the X factor, but they all had the Max Factor – primped, coiffed, powdered and preened within an inch of their lives.
The fireworks, as anticipated, came from two seasoned old campaigners. It looked like the other five were on the undercard when Mitchell and McGuinness squared up to each other in the main bout. During particularly heated exchanges in the opening half of the show, one suspected TV3 would have to book a JCB to dig Gay out of Martin by the end of the show.
Vincent Browne ambushed McGuinness midway through the programme when he produced a shedloads of books written by authors stating that he has been a member of the IRA until recently. The Sinn Féin MP says he left the IRA in 1974.
As the volumes kept coming from a big hat down near where Vinnie’s ankle was chained to the table leg, it seemed only a matter of time before he would produce a rabbit.
Martin dismissed the acres of print produced over the years as people “jumping to conclusions”, some of whom “are hostile to Sinn Féin”. It was an interesting stunt from Browne, but at least it silenced Gay Mitchell, mute in admiration.
Entrepreneur Seán Gallagher, not to be confused with Mary Davis, who is a Social Entrepreneur, said he wanted to be a flare for the government to fire.
“The president is not the head of the IDA,” said Michael D in response to both of them.
Dana just wanted to get into the Áras so she could stand as a one-woman bulwark against the encroaching menace of Europe, rebuffing the hordes with her trusty Constitution, which she’ll get around to reading if she gets the job.
McGuinness and Mitchell cancelled each other out. You could see Martin was getting a bit irritated by this, particularly as he didn’t get as many chances as he had hoped to mention his VBF’s Peter Robinson and Ian Paisley.
David Norris got the Vinnie treatment over the clemency letters he wrote for his former lover, who had been convicted of statutory rape, and over his views on pederasty.
Norris smiled and flapped and flailed and flapped some more but was less than convincing.
Earlier, he told how he had visited a music school in Cork where the students sang to him. He took a deep breath. “Nevah give up,” he boomed and we thought he was going to sing. But instead, he recited the lyrics.
“I’m young, fresh, dynamic,” said the bald, 49-year-old Gallagher as he made his way into the studio. There’s hope for us all, so.
Mary Davis, who showed she is more assertive than might previously had been seen, was described by Vincent as having been on “more boards than Michael Flatley”. But she may never recover from her campaign photograph, which has appeared in great numbers on lamp-posts around the country and has become known as the “Special K poster”.
Overall, Michael D came across as the most reasoned and presidential and seemed content to let the other big hitters slug it out. Perhaps he was too low-key. Perhaps that was the plan.
An intriguing debate, which threatened at times to descend into chaos but Browne managed to keep them all on the right side of civility.
They all want to be inspirational. But were many inspired by what they saw? They speak of values and what they “can bring to the role”. Ho hum.
But while it was a bit fraught at times, none of them made a show of themselves. One or two quietly sank a little, others treaded water while Martin and Gay provided the turbulence.
There have been worse campaigns. This one is trundling along nicely, like a soap opera.
And it was a good night for Vincent too – savage and cuddly and daft, just the way his fans like it.
And no, we can’t put him in the Áras. Ever.