The President, Mrs McAleese, cannot take re-election for granted, writes Jim Duffy
They think it's all over. But is the President, Mrs McAleese, really guaranteed re-election?
The truth is that she isn't. To understand why you need to understand two key facts about the Irish Presidency.
No 1: The Presidency is a classic "soft" office, the "mom and apple pie" of electoral politics. In other words, it is exceptionally hard to be anything but highly popular in a job that is all about expressing positive national mood music, without the encumbrance of having to deal with hard, tough, controversial decisions. Hence we had Mrs McAleese's 86 per cent approval rating, Mary Robinson's 93 per cent.
Even the infinitely more controversial Prince of Wales, in a similar "soft" post, could within a short time of his controversial break-up from Diana and relationship with Camilla hit the mid-70s.
But the trouble with "soft" offices is that it is impossible to tell how much of that support is itself "soft" (responsive to the feel-good aspect of the job but liable to disappear at the slightest problem) and how much is hard, committed support that will withstand the rigours of an electoral battle.
Remember, Mrs McAleese's 86 per cent support includes committed voters, "soft" semi-committeds and many people from Labour, the Greens, Sinn Féin and Fine Gael who may rally to their own candidate if their party nominates one, or maybe not vote at all.
And it also includes many people who like her but never vote. The key question is: how much of Mrs McAleese's 86 per cent does all of this amount to? At the very least 20 per cent; it could easily amount to half her support, making her actual support somewhere in the 50s, conceivably back in the mid-40s.
Secondly, of the six contested Irish presidential elections, five produced dramatic upsets. In 1945 the "guaranteed first-count victor", Fianna Fáil's Sean T. O'Kelly, on the day got a mediocre second-count win.
In 1966, with a Machiavellian campaign run by his campaign manager, Charles Haughey, and a Teilifís Éireann news blackout of his rival, the "unbeatable" de Valera came within 1 per cent of losing to Fine Gael's Tom O'Higgins.
In 1973 the media predicted O'Higgins to win. Yet, thanks to a disastrous campaign, he was beaten by predicted-to-lose Erskine Childers. The 1990 race started with three certainties. Brian Lenihan to win. He lost. Fine Gael to take second. It got third. Labour to get third. It won.
And in 1997 Albert Reynolds was certain to get the Fianna Fáil nomination: he lost it. The media acclaimed Adi Roche as the new Mary Robinson. She came a humiliating fourth. The media wrote off Dana as a right-wing Catholic. She came a credible third, with a far broader appeal.
Mary Banotti was written off yet came top in Dublin. And the "unelectable" and "tribal time-bomb" Mary McAleese, who supposedly couldn't get the Fianna Fáil nomination, let alone the Presidency, won both.
Put simply, going by history only a novice or a fool would make cast-iron predictions about Irish presidential elections. Only one of the six contests went to plan, with de Valera easily winning in 1959, but even there that was because many of his opponents endorsed him to get him out of the Dáil.
So what could go wrong for Mrs McAleese in 2004?
Remember, she can nominate herself as an independent, but in reality she cannot run a truly independent campaign. She would need funds far beyond her means, an experienced electoral team she has not got, a press office she could not afford, and an on-the-ground team of experienced canvassers that you find in political parties.
So she needs Fianna Fáil to run a campaign. But the closer that embrace the more it may turn off voters who, as the local elections showed, are bitterly anti-Fianna Fáil. The party could try to play down the Fianna Fáilism of the campaign, but there is no guarantee that will work.
Then there are the practical time-bombs. There are no limits to spending in presidential elections, but too expensive a pro-president campaign would generate a backlash.
Using the president's spokeswoman during the campaign is also problematical; after all she is partly funded by the taxpayer. So Eileen Gleeson will have to take leave of absence from her job as President McAleese's spokeswoman and become Candidate McAleese's spokeswoman, paid for by the campaign.
President Bush cannot so much as make a campaign phone call from the White House. Even though no such limits exist here, can the President use Arás an Uachtaráin (even the private residence) for campaign meetings without earning media criticism?
And what of her rumoured plan to choose Noel Dempsey, who may still be a Minister in October, as her campaign manager? It could drag her into choppy party political waters.
Then there's the absence of Fine Gael. In theory that should help Mrs McAleese. In practice it could seriously damage her.
Past history shows that if a party does not contest a presidential election, many of its voters simply don't bother to vote. The absence of Labour voters cost Tom O'Higgins the Presidency in 1966 and 1973.
Fine Gael people are well disposed towards Mrs McAleese. Many would give her a No 1, most probably their No 2. But if they don't have their own candidate to get them out to vote, she could be down thousands in the counts.
Put simply, all we can say about Mrs McAleese is that she is the likely, but not the certain, winner. This is one election that is anything but over.
Jim Duffy is a commentator on public affairs