Which party ran the best campaign?

DeepBlue

Now that the election is over and posters don't have to trot out the party line which party ran the best campaign?
My own opinions:

FF
They got off to an absolutely dreadful start with a hurried rush to the Park and Bertie not even hanging around at the first news conference to take questions. For the following two weeks they were dogged by questions on "Bertiegate" while the opposition were climbing in the polls. IMO the media were wary of being sucked into the slick FF election bandwagon from '02 where they were spoon-fed everything and they didn't want to be seen to be so easily manipulated again.
FF's campaign turned on the live debate between Bertie and Enda. Bertie obviously won this and Enda was poor. I assume it was a tactical decision of FG not to be too combative as Noonan had done this in the past and still lost the election heavily. In any case Enda had to win the Health and Crime sections decisively but somehow managed to lose them. He also gave Bertie a free pass on the Bertiegate issue, effectively ending it as an election issue. FF had ambushed Enda in the debate and drove their winning points home on the following days. They hadn't "forensically dismantled" the contract, as PJ Mara said, but they'd punched holes in it and made voters wonder.

FG
FG got off to a great start with a 31% poll result that must have energised many of the party. They took the FF election rulebook from '02 and followed all the rules as Enda out-Bertied Bertie in a dash around the country. The tactic meant that Enda never had to stay standing in any one spot for very long and answer any hard questions about the contract.
The contract itself was a great idea. Simple, easily understood and easy to sell on the doorsteps. However it was far too simplistic to stand up to any close and sustained scrutiny and when FF really applied the pressure after the debate it became a lot more threadbare.
If FG had gotten into Government (and they still might ) it would be as a result of the anti-government sentiment rather than anything in particular that they did themselves.
They harnessed that sentiment and almost coasted to victory on it and they did benefit from benovelent media reporting that hid the lack of talent on the present FG front bench outside of Richard Bruton.

Labour
Labour seemed to lose their own identity and got re-branded as the "Alliance for Change". The entire campaign seemed to be all Pat Rabbitte with few outings for the other members of the Labour front bench. We didn't see much of McManus, Howlin, Quinn etc. Rabbitte clearly won the mini-debate and was a formidable, capable performer throughout. They're still the party most likely to be in Government after the election but must be wondering what they have to do to improve their results.

PDs
Like FF they had a disastrous campaign and reached a nadir when they couldn't decide whether to stay in Government or leave. They seemed oblivious to the fact that pulling out of Government after an election had been called would just look ridiculous. They resorted heavily to negative campaigning to try to recover some ground. Resorting to FF-style mis-representation (lying) of Green policies probably didn't do them any favours either. The "Rumble in Ranelagh" was a highlight of the campaign though.

Greens
Like Labour they seemed to get a bit squeezed out and identified as part of the "Alliance for Change" even though they didn't have any formal pact with any other party.
They polled impressively throughout and will be disappointed if they don't better in the results. They may get a lot of third and fourth preferences but probably not enough first preferences to make an impact.

SF
SF's campaign seemed to be to put out young, good looking candidates in areas that it hopes will be new territory for them and hope that progress in the North will get them a few more transfers from other parties. They were in the position of being the least likely party to be in the next Government so they could afford to make any promise they liked in the sure knowledge that they wouldn't have to try to honour it.

Where do others think the parties won or lost the election during the campaign?

silvine

DeepBlue wrote:

FG
FG got off to a great start with a 31% poll result that must have energised many of the party. They took the FF election rulebook from '02 and followed all the rules as Enda out-Bertied Bertie in a dash around the country. The tactic meant that Enda never had to stay standing in any one spot for very long and answer any hard questions about the contract.
The contract itself was a great idea. Simple, easily understood and easy to sell on the doorsteps. However it was far too simplistic to stand up to any close and sustained scrutiny and when FF really applied the pressure after the debate it became a lot more threadbare.

Agreed, the contract was the most memorable, visual and simple of the partys' campaigns. Parts of it seem to come undone from the leaders' debate onwards, though. Kenny, Mitchell and the crime figures issue hurt FG's credibility.

Enda ran an energetic campaign and many commentators noted he out-Bertied Bertie but many people wondered if the man with the funny hair from Mayo would make an effective leader.

FF rallied the troops over the final days of the campaign and shifted the debate from Ahern's finances to contract and the real issues - thus putting FG on the defense.

Labour's Pat Rabitte came across as very self satisfied in many of his interview e.g the "Paris Hilton with menopause" remark. Perhaps Rabbitte was convinced his party will have the balance of power come the final count?

I agree with the other point about where were all the other Labour front benchers in the campaign - excluding Joan Burton who was very active.

It was a very Pat Rabbitte personality driven campaign. Judging by his lack of bounce in the polls running up to the election, the pubic did not warm to him as party hoped.

The PDs were a disaster, the whole debacle about deciding to pull out of government and the Lamppost 2.0 incident did the party no favours. Then Harney had the issue of the nurses' strike to deal with along with running an uphill race. Many people were unhappy with the politics of fear message "Don't throw it all away". Let's wait and see though, people love to write them and their campaigns off. We all know what happened last time.

Pity the Greens. At the start of the campaign the seemed to have it all to play for and then.. nothing. Despite some clever advertisements (e.g. a political broadcast before Ahern and Kenny's debate) there were some lingering doubts over them having the savy to run the country. Casing points include Gormley in Ranelagh and Trevors Sargent's hand notes.

As for SF, well this election was about laying the groundwork wasn't it. The are making their presence felt. Their campaign was about removing some of the stigma surrounding the party. It should be interesting to see how they do.

AidoCQS

Hindsight is 20/20 but possibly the whole change adjenda was overstated, we are coming off one of the biggest booms in Irish history and its fair to say that people dont want it to change.

A better emphasis should have been made on oversight/accountability. I dont know what is the answer, its always tough to move incumbants, its getting harder as FF excert more influence with media, and move to cement corporate sponsership, placate the opposition.

One thing is for sure though, there needs to be a clearer stratagy for next time, I am concerned for this democracy. 23/25 years in power for any one gang is longer than most dictatorships last.

There was alot too in Labour / FG that indicated that they accept second best, or 2nd preference. The alliance (vote 1/2 etc). The number of locations where they overloaded the candidates, 4 candidates where 2 was more realistic.

The rainbow, they need to do something with that lable, it sounds too wishy, wising on a star, etc. They need to look at a repackaging of their whole approach, maybe even parties joining up

Grudaire

Clearly FF.... They managed to change all focus to the policies of the alternative government, even though small things like corruption, broken promises, and inadequecies.

MisterAnarchy

To be honest I thought all the campaigns were stale and woefully inept.
Obviously people werent too impressed with any campaign so they just stuck with the status quo of Fianna Fail.

SkepticOne

I think all the larger parties have seen the economic writing on the wall. Winning the election was going to be something of a poisoned chalice. Consequently all the parties put up a lacklustre effort in their campaigning.

SkepticOne

MisterAnarchy wrote:

Obviously people werent too impressed with any campaign so they just stuck with the status quo of Fianna Fail.

The mystery then is the high turnout that is being reported.