The Irish race has many unique qualities but two in particular will become important in these four days: our dislike of taking risks and, in times of misfortune, our love of blaming someone other than ourselves, says John Waters. Faced with a choice between taking responsibility or not, we will always choose the latter.
We are poised at a moment of uncertainty when, following 10 years of prosperity, we are unsure if it is going to continue. If we change the government now and things subsequently begin to go badly, we will have nobody to blame but ourselves. Our sense of having made a mistake will haunt us forever. There may or may not be a connection, but we will never know for sure. If we don't change the government and things subsequently go wrong, we can blame the government. This suits us better. Not only is not changing the government less risky; it is also the option which allows us to pass the buck.
The consequences of these tendencies will become partially visible in the opinion polls up to Thursday, and overwhelmingly on Friday as the votes are counted. It reminds me of the 1992 general election in the UK when, for much of the campaign, Labour under Neil Kinnock seemed set to sweep Margaret Thatcher from office. So certain was Kinnock that he began to celebrate before the campaign was over.
But the British people, though embarrassed to admit it, were still under Nanny's spell, and, while telling the pollsters one thing, snuck into the polling booths to say something else. Through the long summer night of the count, certainty turned to disbelief, and then to wonder, as Thatcher swept back to power.
Bertie is no Thatcher, but in many respects the connection he has made renders him better adapted to harvesting the invisible, ineffable sentiment of the voter's private heart. Most of us, certainly most over about 35, regard the prosperity of the past decade as an accident. We don't know where it came from and certainly don't feel we deserve it. We have a strong suspicion that governments of the day, regardless of hue, had little to do with it. But we can't be certain.
Bertie, therefore, is the right man in the right place. He's one of us: he doesn't know what happened either, but has come to personify our sense of simultaneous bemusement and hope. Although he makes speeches from time to time implying that he knows what's going on, we see this as no more nor less than one would expect from a politician.
Other politicians declare themselves certain they know what they are doing, and this scares us. What if one of them pulls the wrong lever or throws the wrong switch? Bertie knows not to make sudden moves or take too seriously the idea of being in control. Bertie is Bertie, and, even though this condition baffles every attempt at description, we have come to anticipate precisely its effects.
Thus, the significance as a force in this election of last week's intervention by Tony Blair is incalculable in terms of the affirmation it provides of a view of Bertie which most us have come to gradually, but still have difficulty in admitting, even to ourselves. Blair is in awe of Bertie, precisely because the greatness of Bertie's political talent is equalled only by its invisibility.
Bertie converts ordinariness into political capital and skill. Blair appreciates this because his own talent is close to the opposite: he sparkles and vibrates in ways that make him a focus for intense admiration or dislike. In contrast to Bertie, he draws attention to himself as an essential element of his appeal. Blair stands out, Bertie blends in. Blair stopped being "Tony" a long time ago. Bertie will always be "Bertie".
The media misunderstand Bertie, but nevertheless the allegations about his private finances emerged from an intuitive desire to strike at the understated connection he has forged with the Irish people. The purpose was not merely to insinuate something dodgy, but to undermine the whole edifice of Bertie's exaggerated ordinariness. But the media-supervised discussion in the public square operates to rules that have only a small space in the hearts or hearths where political sentiment is forged, so the intrusion of crude allegations born of Watergate Syndrome has had a range of effects which may, in the end, cancel one another out. Some people may respond to the mess of Bertie's personal finances in the black-and-white manner of a Liveline discussion, but most of us, secretly, see a reflection of our own lives, of the miracle of monthly financial survival that somehow we manage to pull off. And this also, interestingly, resonates with our sense of the public finances, with the miracle of the Celtic Tiger.
Once again it helps us to understand and, perhaps perversely, trust Bertie without necessarily being able to say why. This goes some way towards explaining why we will renew our embrace of him on Thursday.
He still has life in our affections and nobody has come along to take his place.