Promises don’t win elections. We vote for the party or candidate we trust and can identify with. We vote with our hearts, not with our heads.
The focus-group discussions that Ipsos MRBI has conducted on behalf of The Irish Times among undecided and open voters explore in depth how our attitudes towards politicians and political parties shape the choices we make.
Evident across all discussions is the fact that pre-election promises are a severely devalued currency. Too many pledges have been sacrificed on the altar of coalition. Labour "made such explicit promises" and then broke them, one participant says.
When is delivering on a promise worse than not delivering? When it is a promise to spend money we do not have, although the potential for auction politics to create another boom and bust is not widely acknowledged or understood during the discussions.
Ordinary voters have only a passing interest in politics. The obsession of political activists, analysts and journalists is not shared by the wider public, and subtle policy differences are lost in the election noise.
Promises and policies also matter less now to voters because of the perceived influence of Europe – the invisible hand on the tiller. Greater exposure to the global economy is also undermining the relevance of national politics.
“It’s not depending on Ireland, it’s depending on the global economy, which if it goes bang, you know we’re going to take a bigger hit than anyone else,” one person observes.
Choosing politicians
We vote with our hearts because we use the same cognitive processes and criteria to choose our politicians as we use to choose our friends. As with friends, we forgive politicians who have made poor choices if they have been loyal to us – and, as contradictory as it sounds, we respect politicians who stand for something and have the courage of their convictions.
A friend can be entertaining, bold, charming and defiant. Our favourite politician can be, too.
Is it any surprise that politicians who are connected to and visible in the community get re-elected? At a party level, Fianna Fáil has a record of delivering locally, which has been only partially obscured by events at a national level.
“Everybody is going to favour candidates that have worked for the community . . . I know nobody is going to like his name, but I quite like Seán Haughey,” one voter says.
“Sinn Féin are also leveraging their involvement at community level to drive their vote,” another says. “If you ask a Sinn Féin person, somebody who works for the TD, who has boots on the ground, they’re more than likely going to get it done.”
Pounding the pavements is not the only way to get voters to know you. Social media is working for Gerry Adams, who has a strong fan base among younger voters: tweeting about trampolining naked with his dog no doubt got their attention.
Friends are also people who have integrity and whom you can trust. How do politicians and parties convince voters that they can be trusted? By being honest and making hard choices.
Parties and independents
Voters always value honesty, even if the party leadership may frown on it. Making hard choices is where one can show character and leadership.
Fine Gael "were quite good with Germany. They did make the sacrifices they had to make . . . You know they made the tough decisions," one of the contributors says.
Some voters who do not agree with austerity are willing to give the Government credit for the recovery, or at least a chance to finish what they started. In the Government’s “continuity or chaos” message, many voters see continuity as the reward for displaying character, even if they do not see chaos as the logical alternative to continuity.
Independents rely for support on a combination of local activism and inherent integrity: they can make their own choices, even if it is not always clear what those choices are.
Smaller parties, such as Renua or the Social Democrats, are something of an unknown quantity.
The social divide in Irish politics is glaring. Many of the less well off doubt the motivations of mainstream politicians, resent the salaries they are paid and fail to see how politics has improved life for them or their families. No matter what any government achieves, it will not be enough for this cohort.
Why should politicians get big pensions, asks one participant. “They could leave the Government and go straight into another job. Not like us. If we lost our jobs we’d be sat down in the dole office the next day.”
In contrast, the middle classes see the working classes as pampered, supported by the taxes they pay and blind to the need to encourage enterprise and wealth creation.
Civil War politics has been replaced by class-war politics, and the battle lines are firmly drawn. The water-charges debacle tempted some essentially middle-class voters to wear anti-establishment clothes, but the polls suggest this was just a phase.
Leaders and heroes
It was clear from the discussions that a party is much more than just its leader. It may not always have been so, but it is today. The party leader embodies the values of the party rather than creates them. Which leaves a gap for the political hero whom every voter craves, especially younger voters. At the moment Leo Varadkar looks like a political hero to some. Every hero needs a crusade, and his was the marriage-equality referendum, the defining political event (together with water charges) of this Government.
Varadkar speaks openly and honestly, our participants believe. Everyone seems to acknowledge that the health service is a mess and will remain so for a long time to come. No easy fixes. Yet he is the only Government politician to say so.
He has a powerful, personal narrative and has let voters into his life. Voters who have never met him feel they know him.
Heroes don’t always make good leaders, but there is a lesson in the Varadkar story for all politicians. The more you trust voters, the more they will trust you. Now there’s a policy voters can believe in.
Background: how the focus groups worked
Ipsos MRBI held four focus-group discussions on behalf of
The Irish Times
on January 20th and 21st.
The participants were undecided and open voters from four social groups: urban working-class people in the C2 and DE social categories; thirtysomething workers in the modest-income C1 category; a group from Meath and Kildare in the A and B middle and upper-middle classes; and third-level students. Each group contained eight people and was facilitated by Damian Loscher of Ipsos MRBI.
The purpose was to explore how our attitudes towards politicians and parties shape the choices we make.
Findings from focus groups are not statistically robust. Their objective is to explore motivations rather than to measure opinions like a traditional poll.
Damian Loscher is managing director of Ipsos MRBI
