A couple of years back, Enda Kenny and I were guests on the same Newstalk radio programme. Afterwards, as we walked together from the Pepper Canister to Leinster House, Kenny told me about his vision of Ireland - what was wrong and how it should be addressed.
His basic analysis, as I recall, was that huge numbers of people are now cast adrift of the functioning economy or the State, the negative fallout from progress impinging drastically on their lives, but nobody speaks for them for fear of seeming to dissent from the feel-good atmosphere associated with prosperity. He spoke of people who were suffering in the health services, in prison, in the family law system; people stretched beyond endurance to keep bills paid and their children safe and healthy; people harassed by means-testers in the autumn of their days; people driven mad by gridlock, and so forth.
Listening, I was struck not just by the breadth and cohesion of his comprehension, but by the passion of his delivery. As he disappeared into Leinster House, I remember thinking that Fine Gael might be on the verge of a visionary comeback. By Nassau Street I had coined a slogan on which Kenny might fight the election: The Overlooked Ireland. I briefly considered ringing him, but decided that he had plenty of spin doctors more adept at sloganeering than I.
In the meantime, almost nothing of the content or energy of the vision Kenny shared with me that morning has come across publicly. Everyone who encounters him personally says that he is likeable, engaging, smart and passionate, that if he could put himself across in the media, he would clear all before him.
Alas, not only has Kenny failed to advance an alternative philosophy, but his media appearances increasingly manifest the qualities of muppetry, as, clearly under the direction of the spin doctors in whom I once placed so much faith, he seems more concerned with his hand movements than saying what's in his gut.
But Kenny's artificial persona is symptomatic of a much deeper problem in his party. That problem is that Fine Gael is afraid of never again getting into government, and this fear is crippling its ability to think, speak and act in ways that might give it a fighting chance of success. There are two essential elements of this fear: fear of the media, especially television, and fear of losing the friendship of potential coalition partners. The former goes back to the National Handlers, and explains why, whereas in person Enda Kenny is impressive, even charismatic, he comes across on radio and television as an overcooked ham.
It is as though he has been warned to the point of paralysis of the dangers of letting his guard slip in public, and has become so fixated with projecting an image of strength, anger or whatever, that he has forgotten how to be Enda Kenny. But the bigger part of Fine Gael's problem is its almost total lack of a policy identity. Fine Gael has been confused for two decades as a consequence of having enjoyed its most electorally successful period under the leftish guidance of Garret FitzGerald. Traditionally, FG had represented rightish values like market economics, family values and conservative social policies. Garret capitalised on a moment of change, when the youth demographic was on the ascendant, to lead a revolution broadly against the Fine Gael grain. But it was a gentle revolution, based on an opportunistic apprehension of a changing mood, and did little to alter Fine Gael's essential nature. For 20 years Fine Gael has misread the essentially populist nature of FitzGerald's achievement and continued to agonise over whether it should be right-wing or left-wing. In that walk from the Pepper Canister, I fancied that Enda Kenny had finally broken the code. But his party still fails to comprehend what I know he knows: that the appetite of the present moment could, were Fine Gael free to capitalise upon it, liberate the party back into its more traditional mindsets.
What people want now is not talk about change. They have had change till it comes out their ears. What they want is consolidation, refinement and the correction of the errors and excesses arising from too-singular a view of progress. FG's misunderstanding of its dilemma is compounded by the requirements of the electoral system. Since all its potential partners are - in a broad and rather loose sense - left-wing, the party feels torn between its traditionalist base and what it sees as its only hope of regaining office.
Janus-faced, it seeks to extend comfort in opposing directions. As well as worrying about its own supporters, it must constantly consider the responses of Green and Labour supporters also. The result is an adulteration of policy and a confusion of identity. But without the numbers which it can only achieve by being true to itself, Fine Gael will not be in a position to negotiate a coalition package with anyone. Put another way, if Fine Gael had no chance of getting into government, it would stand a better chance of being itself. And then people might vote for it.