Where is Ireland's Obama?!

GalwayGunner

From reading the boards here and the recent opinion polls its fairly obvious that the general consensus is that the Irish public aren't best pleased with the choices of leaders they have in front of them.

So are there any young politicians out there languishing on the back benches that have shown promise??

Does anyone know of anyone who could be Ireland's answer to Obama, (1997) Tony Blair or Kevin Rudd??!!

Please!!

af_thefragile

The last thing Ireland needs is an Obama.
Yes, he's got a good image an all but his economic plans will put the last straw in sending Ireland back to the good old days before the thought of celtic tiger even existed...

holly1

He is not worried about Ireland,he is looking after his country,the way our lot were ment to look after theirs and ours,but dident.
I dont think we have anyone who comes near him,worst luck.

markopantelic

Can you compare? Our population is simply too small to produce a great leader sure it can happen, but in 70 years or however long its been has Ireland had a strong innovative leader?

The best hope we have is from our immigrant community, hopefully the best of them stay and their children can bring some fresh ideas.

Do we even have a culture which allows for this type of person?

thebouldwhacker

We will never have an 'Obama', the political system wouldnt let him passed local elections!

The changes needed would have to start with changing relationships with the power base and if anyone seriously tried to make such changes they would be simply ignored by mainstream... Not saying he was perfect by any way but Tony Gregory comes to mind, people like him may have local support but would never be allowed reach real power.

We need and 'Obama' party, however every time one sprouts it gets crushed.

Pesimistic I know but as someone who works at the coal face of social justice all I see are policies of maintanence, no real substance.
It would have been SO easy to have run the country correctly and make real changes which would have paid off for generations and sofened the blow of the current crunch but thats not how the market works.
If a TD came out tomorrow and said policies X,Y & Z will bring closer social change but it'll cost you, well they wouldn't be a TD for very long, at least not a TD in a main party.....

There are a few glimers of hope Sherlock in Cork seems bright enough but as soon as the hard questions are put to him he seems to take party line.

Hmmm, there is a Boards footie club, cycling club, car club.... a boards political party??? Now that would be fun to set up, may even bring in e voting.
It would be some challange for the Mods though:D:D:D

Rb

markopantelic wrote: »

The best hope we have is from our immigrant community, hopefully the best of them stay and their children can bring some fresh ideas.

Yes, because there has been so many fantastic leaders and politicians from Poland :rolleyes:

OP: Lol, are you seriously expecting a great leader to somehow emerge from the spinless cowards that populate this country?

Don't get your hopes up. The last general election said enough about this country and those living in it than could ever be written.

Permabear

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markopantelic

Ah well it sounded good, no need to nit pick mate

thebouldwhacker

donegalfella wrote: »

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Yea, thats what we do...

People come to us saying I need help, we help them help themselves, they then help others....

What I'm saying is the majority of issues we come across are due to unworkable policies handed down from on high. True some people want everything handed to them but they are by far the minority. I'm not echoing Reagan when he said 'govenment is our problem' I'm saying bad government is, and boy do we have one of those....

People waiting in line at soup kitchen's in Ireland, in 2009? yea the notion of social justice really caused this mess

caff

Well we have Declan Ganley and his Liberatas party..... he even came out and compared himself to Obama. Though his slogan might be more along the lines of "change you can be cynical about"

Karlusss

Rb wrote: »

OP: Lol, are you seriously expecting a great leader to somehow emerge from the spinless cowards that populate this country?

As much as that's an outrageously cynical thing to say, I have to give you kudos for having eyes open enough to see it's not just "them" (i.e. politicians, RTE celebrities who don't take pay cuts, bankers, developers, etc) who are to blame, it's everyone.

As for where our Obama is coming from - political system is different. Even if we had someone with the charisma of Obama, he'd have no power to appoint his cabinet outside elected TDs/people already powerful within his own party/the people he made promises to to form a coalition.

bigeasyeah

You really think we ll ever vote in a minority? Im not being smart but could you ever see the day when a member of the travelling community becomes Taoiseach? Again the States leads to way much to the chagrin of its detractors.

markopantelic

I don't think the OP is talking about Barracks colour.

Sleazus

I can see two reasons:

• Irish politics are local, so those that are charismatic tend to be a local level - no one needs to canvas nationwide, save party leaders.
• The electorate or conservative. The two founding parties have (in effect, as FF is rooted in pre-1927 SF) existed since the foundation of the state. We've never had a big counter-cultural movement (on which the Democratic Party since Kennedy (with the exception of Carter) has been based). Obama is a product of that movement - in his style, his rhetoric, his politics. In Ireland, a radical figure like that would be unlikely to emerge from a party with enough support to get elected.

There's also a much more controversial reason I might suggest, from my own experience:

We like to see ourselves as victims in this country. Nothing is ever our own fault. As a result, when bad things happen, we react to it rather than act on it. Look at these boards for example. Every single poster seems to be foaming at the mouth about the economy, but everyone talks about punishing Fianna Fail the next chance they get. I've heard very few talk about why Fine Gael is a good choice (other than "they're not Fianna Fail") or how they'll magically fix the economy. Obama's rise was predicated on a hype machine of voter empowerment ("Yes, we can!"). Voters here don't want to be empowered - because once they are, their mess becomes their own problem. Our opposition parties don't vie for power proactively, they snipe and snark and undermine the measures taken by those in power. Because it works, they'll keep doing it. The moment they adopt a proactive policy, they open themselves to attack.

Sleepy

Wasn't it Fitzgerald who commentated that the tragedy of Charles Haughey was that he had all the talent and capability to be our greatest leader but turned those talents to self-enrichment instead of public service?

bigstar

the party system here wouldnt allow it. the US system allows individuals to rise through the system because congress is less run by parties and more by loyalty to constituencies. so you can show on your own your capable of attracting enough support to have chance at the presidency.

here however, parties dominate and are dominated by the party leader. towing the party line is necessary to do well. you cant rise through the parties without the support of the powerful in the party. so no obama for ireland.

Manic Moran

What makes anyone think that even if Ireland produced an Obama, and even if the man got elected to Taoseach, that the Irish people would be satisfied with him?

NTM

caff

Manic Moran wrote: »

What makes anyone think that even if Ireland produced an Obama, and even if the man got elected to Taoseach, that the Irish people would be satisfied with him?

NTM

Its a problem in the US too, look at Fox "news" and check out Glenn Beck, guy has massive ratings just by panning Obama. You don't have to be liked by everyone, just enough to build some hype.

Biggins

GalwayGunner wrote: »

From reading the boards here and the recent opinion polls its fairly obvious that the general consensus is that the Irish public aren't best pleased with the choices of leaders they have in front of them.

So are there any young politicians out there languishing on the back benches that have shown promise??

Does anyone know of anyone who could be Ireland's answer to Obama, (1997) Tony Blair or Kevin Rudd??!!

Please!!

Give me half a frakin' chance and I'll blow the fcukers out of the Dail with my complaining - the useless schites, the lot of them! :mad: :mad: :mad:

GSF

caff wrote: »

Its a problem in the US too, look at Fox "news" and check out Glenn Beck, guy has massive ratings just by panning Obama. You don't have to be liked by everyone, just enough to build some hype.

Its not just Fox viewers that has reservations about Obama. there are whole swathes of people outside of the non-metropolitan elite who dont buy into the hype.

ionix5891

Do you honestly think the racist "deey took oouur joobs", daily mail reading, eastern EU worker hating brigade that lives here on boards

will allow a "black" man anywhere near power


im sorry but one just has to read the amount of racist, nationalist threads here on boards to realise how retarded and backwards a certain section of our society is

thethedev

People will always be miserable, reccession or not, Fianna Fáil or not.
Its the same stuff constantly being spouted from a general public that really dont actually know what they want. When you see how much impact the tabloids have on peoples opinion of anything and anyone its hard to keep faith in the voters of this country.
An Irish Obama is possible, until the media decide otherwise.

markopantelic

ionix5891 wrote: »

Do you honestly think the racist "deey took oouur joobs", daily mail reading, eastern EU worker hating brigade that lives here on boards

will allow a "black" man anywhere near power


im sorry but one just has to read the amount of racist, nationalist threads here on boards to realise how retarded and backwards a certain section of our society is

I think the OP believes Obama is doing a good job, and is wondering could we ever have someone with the personality and vigour that Obama seems to possess. I don't think he's asking if we would vote a half black half white guy as president.

for the record, i do think xenephobia will increase in ireland, but if a black guy was running for president here you'd expect he would be assimilated into greater population and i'd guess if people thought he'd do a good job they'd vote him in. i mean most of the population was so happy about Obama becoming president of USA.

johnathan woss

donegalfella wrote: »

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It would be interesting to see how you would get on with your arts degree and phd on the works of Ayn Rand if you were truly left to fend for yourself.

johnathan woss

Anyway, why would we want an Obama ?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that there has never been a US president who loaded his administration with Wall Street types as much as Obama ?

Darragh29

We are not a nation of leaders, we are a nation of followers. I used to work for a multinational and on my first week of employee orientation, I discovered that if I wanted to avail of the service, my employers had put on a private bus/coach to pick us up from our home and bring us to work! Same again in the evening, take you from work back to your front door again!

This is unfortunately the type of dependency we have become accustomed to... We want the government to create jobs. I ask you in all seriousness, what the f*ck would a government know about creating jobs!?!?! They are are all closseted public servants...

What this country suffers most from is a deep seated inferiority complex, where we need the yank with the big swinging dick to come over here and hand us jobs and pick us up in the morning and then bring us back to our front door again, and then we all pat ourselves on the back because the yank chose to come to Ireland, sure aren't we great! You hear evidence of this attitude everyday now on the radio, "we are positioning ourselves to take advantage of the next global upswing". Have you ever heard such insufferable bullsh*t in your life?!?!?

Typical flea on the camels back mentality, sometimes when I hear this coming down the radio I get furious.

Sir Oxman

We already have our Obama's here - FF who have matched Mr Obama in the amount of U-turns done.

Anyway, can someone explain what's so great about Obama, forgetting about the hype, the schmaltz, the useless soundbytes?

Daithinski

GalwayGunner wrote: »

From reading the boards here and the recent opinion polls its fairly obvious that the general consensus is that the Irish public aren't best pleased with the choices of leaders they have in front of them.

So are there any young politicians out there languishing on the back benches that have shown promise??

Does anyone know of anyone who could be Ireland's answer to Obama, (1997) Tony Blair or Kevin Rudd??!!

Please!!

We can hardly muster Ireland's answer to George W. Bush never mind Obama!

ionix5891

gambiaman wrote: »

We already have our Obama's here - FF who have matched Mr Obama in the amount of U-turns done.

Anyway, can someone explain what's so great about Obama, forgetting about the hype, the schmaltz, the useless soundbytes?

he manages to trillions of $$$ out of thin air

Deise Tom

I would love to see Political Parties entise young people to get involved at a local and national level. I travelled many roads in the lead up to the local elections this year, and looked at a number of papers and what was mostly to be seen was the same boring old faces. Maybe if younger people were brought in, maybe new ideas and new HONEST people could be brought to the various tables of power.

Arnold Layne

What has Obama actually "CHANGED"? Diddley Squat. We have enough BS already in our political system.