Image is everything - obey your polls
BY ROBBIE MacGABHANN
| |
A new launch and rebranding of Fine Gael will mean nothing unless
they can convince voters they actually beleive in something other
than that they would be better managers of the economy than
Fianna Fáil
|
``Now you've got a good government keep it'' This was the election
slogan used by Fine Gael in the 1977 Leinster House elections.
Fine Gael didn't win the election. In fact, Fianna Fáil romped
home with their largest ever majority. They had campaigned with a
much slicker package of promises and give aways, including the
undeliverable twin pledges of spending more while taxing less.
The dilemma Fine Gael found themselves in then is the exact place
they find themselves this week as the parliamentary party meets
to elect a new leader. It is in a sense the beginning of the end
for Fine Gael.
Electoral politics was and still is moving away from any real
ideological platform. Instead, the larger political parties are
trodding a route taken in most other `liberal' democracies: the
dominant groups commandeer the electoral process through
controlling much more resources than other parties and by using
opinion poll technology to continually measure what the majority
of potential voters want and offering them this at elections.
Fine Gael's problem is that barring the party's brief surge in
the FitzGerald era it has been unclear what the party actually
stands for and more importantly what does it stand for that
differentiates it in the voters' minds from Fianna Fáil.
This is becoming all the more important as an ever younger
electorate has little time for either civil war politics or the
Haughey-FitzGerald face off of the 1980s as an influence on their
potential voting choices.
Even in 1986, it was widely known within Fine Gael that there was
a problem with their image. Having abandoned their conservative
right wing dogma for mass politics with a liberal tinge
represented by FitzGerald's ``Garret the good'' and ``constitutional
crusade'' personas, this was a huge problem for the party.
Privately commissioned opinion polls had told them that the
party's image was not a positive one in voters' minds. This was
partly due to the fact that the previous five years in government
had been bruising ones for the party. The initial response was to
plan a long election campaign rather than a short one and drop
their green colour for a ``more marketable blue''.
Given that opinion polls had also told them that the personal
attacks on Haughey that had proved so successful in the early
1980s would be unproductive in 1987, Fine Gael had in reality
little more than a new colour to win votes.
By 1992, with a rehabilitated Bruton in the leadership, Fine Gael
were even in more difficulties. Again opinion poll and focus
research had told the party that voters were bored and cynical.
Bruton was found to be ``grey'' and was dispatched to an image
consultant while more new logos and colours were devised.
Part of the perceived problem was that Fine Gael had a rational
appeal to voters while Fianna Fáil had an emotional appeal that
was more attractive to floating voters.
Once again, Fine Gael went into an election trying to substitute
substance with style. The surge of voters to Labour in 1992
showed an electorate searching for something more than new
colours yet Fine Gael were unable to deal with this voter
reality.
The high water mark of Fine Gael's flight from reality was during
the aftermath of the 1992 election when Eoghan Harris organised
an ard fheis that was part tragic cabaret and part sad quiz show.
In some sense, the real miracle is that Bruton surrvived as long
as he did. He would have been dumped in the mid 1990s if the
Fianna Fáil-Labour coalition had not gone into self-destruct mode
and gifted Bruton the Taoiseach post.
The fact that Bruton could not hold onto power in 1997 while
holding an election in such a positive environment showed just
how much Fine Gael were slipping. Unemployment was falling,
economic growth was at record levels and the negative aspects of
overheating had not yet hit the 26-County economy and still
Bruton could not produce a vote surge for Fine Gael.
The sad reality is that even though Bruton changed the colour of
his suits and ties, while the party changed the tints of its
livery and logo design, Fine Gael has been peddling a product
that is little more than Fianna Fáil lite.
Fine Gael offer the same recipe of free market policies, pro-EU
propaganda and an ever growing basket of tax cuts, just that
little bit more watery than Fianna Fáil's electoral cola.
Now Bruton has been sacrificed because an Irish Times opinion
poll published at the end of Janaury showed that despite all the
scandals and crisis surrounding the Fianna Fáil-Progressive
Democrats coalition Fine Gael were actually dropping in the
opinion polls.
Bruton was being dumped because of the opinions of 1,000 people
over the age of 18 interviewed at 100 locations aroud the 26
Counties. Bruton said he was recognising a majority decision
taken by elected representatives of his party. They were doing
this on the whim of 1,000 mythical voters.
Jim Mitchell believes the party has image problems and Michael
Noonan gave, according to his supporters, a ``superb analysis as
to why the Fine Gael brand name and logo now meant nothing''.
It seems that they too do not realise that a new launch and
rebranding of Fine Gael will mean nothing unless they can
convince voters they actually beleive in something other than
that they would be better managers of the economy than Fianna
Fáil.
Fianna Fail have cornered the market on image. There is no room
for another. Like the ad says ``Obey your thirst''. Come on Michael
and Jim Some real beliefs when you're ready.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)