CIAN NIHILL'Ssideways look at Election 2011
Nunn shall evade the really big issues in Carlow-Kilkenny
WOULD YOU vote for a politician who cannot swim? How about one who prefers coffee to tea?
These vital questions and many more like them are finally being answered thanks to hard-hitting interviews on a local radio station.
KCLR96 FM is broadcasting the answers from 19 candidates running in Carlow-Kilkenny on topics as varied as shoe size to favourite types of music.
Each day on the Sue Nunn Show between 10am and 12am two candidates’ responses are aired, with Ramie Leahy (Independent) and John McGuinness (Fianna Fáil) most recently in the hot seat.
Some of the revelations in the past few days include the inability of Des Hurley of Labour to choose between beef or salmon and that Sinn Féin’s candidate Kathleen Funchion has two tattoos (foot and back).
Phil Hogan of Fine Gael can’t swim, while Mary White of the Greens is that someone we all know who prefers salt-and-vinegar crisps over cheese-and-onion.
Quote Of The Day: NED O'KEEFFE
" The situation has become so bad that an Army coup is a real possibility. "
Ned O'Keeffe, retiring Fianna Fáil TD for Cork East, on the state of the country as reported in the Evening Echo yesterday
Resurrection of ‘dead-man vote’ may breathe life into ailing campaigns
DESPITE THE low credibility rating of politicians today, it appears that they have actually come a long way from the devious ways of their predecessors.
A damning report has shown how the past political parties in this country simply “made up” thousands of voters to help slant the ballot box in their favour.
After a sprawling search to acquire election literature from Ireland’s past, Kenny’s Bookshop in Galway unearthed a British committee’s investigation into election fraud in the 1830s.
It found one of the key demographics that any party would have to win to secure election victory was the “dead-man vote” as deceased citizens had frequently risen from the afterlife, apparently just to avail of their right to vote.
It is yet to be seen whether that same group of presumably undecided, deceased voters will come out in force in 2011 to sway the election for one side or the other.
Election online the best bits from Youtube
Finally some good news for Fianna Fáil – they are winning the anarchist vote. So long as they continue to “destroy” the country, they at least have this man’s number one.
tinyurl.com/66z4ul3
If you thought Brian Cowen’s infamous Morning Ireland interview some months ago was sluggish, wait until you see this doctored clip of Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny.
tinyurl.com/39nprbt
ONLINE
irishtimes.com/election2011
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