"Like Schwarzenegger, I'll be back," said Dana Rosemary Scallon in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, yesterday shortly after losing her seat in the European Parliament.
Ms Scallon, who believes that pre-election opinion polls caused her "immense damage", says she is "considering all options". She hasn't ruled out running for the Dáil again, or in the presidential election later this year.
"I received nearly 73,000 votes after transfers, and I'd like to think that the vote I've have received here in this region would be replicated across the country", she told The Irish Times.
Ms Scallon's election team had been banking on substantial transfers from Fine Gael's second candidate, Ms Madeleine Taylor-Quinn, to retain her seat. She had also been hoping to gain from the elimination of Fianna Fáil's Dr Jim McDaid.
Party activists involved in checking said that a percentage of the spoiled votes showed Clare voters' upset at no longer being part of the Munster European election constituency. Ms Scallon had focused on Clare and the issue of Shannon airport's future as part of her campaign, which was also fought on her familiar "family values" ticket and her concern about the European Constitution.
Her election to the European Parliament in 1999 had defied predictions then. The foundation for her 1999 foray had been laid two years earlier, when she returned from a religious broadcasting career in the United States to run in the presidential election, finishing ahead of Labour's Adi Roche.
This time round, Fine Gael's strategy of running Senator Jim Higgins and Ms Taylor-Quinn, who polled a very respectable 41,570 first preferences, and the rise and rise of Sinn Féin, ensured that it would be a very different election landscape.
Ms Scallon's campaign team had also suffered a rift after the last abortion referendum, yet on the campaign trail she was as polished and organised as she had been five years before. During canvassing, she made it clear that she supported the Government's citizenship referendum.
Ms Scallon was graceful in defeat when she was eliminated shortly after lunchtime yesterday, but was highly critical of opinion polls which put her at 7 per cent initially. "It is difficult to get closure on my result because of this", she told The Irish Times.
"I lost a very important pillar of support, and I feel the validity of these polls so close to an election should be looked at."
