Young voters don’t care about Bertie Ahern. They want to know if they’ll ever own a house (via IrishTimesPol)
Fianna Fáil hopes voters have forgotten about all this, along with the cash whip-rounds. And the fact that he didn’t have a bank account when he was minister for finance. And all the times he obfuscated and evaded, including in sworn evidence to the tribunal. Still, the wisdom goes, if Boris could seriously plot a comeback after just seven weeks in the wilderness, then 11 years is surely more than enough for the Bert.
Only blind arrogance or naked desperation can account for the notion – widely shared in those WhatsApp messages this week – that a 71-year-old who hasn’t been a TD since 2011 still “gets” the public like no one else. He may “get” the white, male, comfortably-off, Mass-going, homeowning, traditionally FF-voting public, but the time when that was the dominant voice in Irish society is long past.
Yes, inevitably, he will remind some – some Fianna Fáil TDs anyway – of better times, when the country was awash with kitchen islands and meals out in Michelin-starred restaurants, and the boom just kept getting boomier and boomier, until it stopped. But the idea that nostalgia for those years would drive out the memories of what came after and give him a real shot at the presidency is, frankly, delusional.
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