Who should have a right to stand for the Presidency?

Peter Casey has just won himself a few more % points following this mornings Indo podcast and his comments on Traveller culture
 
Im guessing Peter Casey may as well withdraw from the election now and save his money.
His comments about Travellers and the office of President do not fit.
Although I think Claire Byrne called him out by suggesting "former Irish Presidential candidate" as a nice calling card for his business interests abroad.

He seems like a nice man and good luck to him. But he should use his business nous now and save himself money. Id back him to finish last or quit.
 
Actually a very clever move by Casey and could see him garner enough votes to get a refund on expenses up to €200k.

He said what an awful lot of people were thinking and many will vote for him as a silent message that the government should stop pandering to travellers. Yes, treat them EQUALLY, but I can't see any reason for special treatment.

He'll get my vote and then my second preference will go to who I want as president. Though MDH will still walk away with it
 
No disrespect, but I suspect any votes he garners will be eclipsed by the amount he will lose.
Im not defending Travellers, they can do that for themselves. But I think anyone with an ounce of wit will recognise that his views and the Office of President of Ireland are wholly incompatible now.
I would be prepared to wager that his first preference votes will be the lowest return of any candidate ever in the history of Presidential elections.
 
I think you're wrong TBS. Before his comments he stood at 1% in the polls. Rightly or wrongly, I would be very confident he will gain a lot more than 1% now as a result of the past few days.
 
You suspect wrong TBS...he'll get a lot of votes on the back of his comments, especially in rural areas where people have to 'deal' with Traveller's on a regular basis.

As for the other candidates on the VM debate the other night all saying they'd have no issue with a halting site being built beside their home....liars!
 

My sentiments exactly. However it is high time we treated travellers EQUALLY and stop letting them away with illegal fires, roaming horses and dogs, filth, pollution and criminality because none of the rest of us would get away with it. Absolutely sick to death pf Pavee point playing the race card anytime anyone calls it as it is.
 
Not surprised.
Casey is currently 1/2 fav to receive lowest first preference votes.
By 'suspending' his campaign with a week to go he has effectively quit.
 
Delboy said:
Casey just announced he's taking the weekend off to consider his position
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If by chance he's reading this, I'd strongly urge him to stay in the race.

It will serve to show pavee point and FG that unless travellers change THEMSELVES and the criminality a very large number engaged in, they will continue to attract the ire of the public
 

I think you are hoping against hope. Casey seems like a decent man. His whole pitch was about his linkages to the Irish diaspora around the world and as a former emigrant and successful business person, how he wanted to use the presidency to exploit those connections for the benefit of Ireland - personally, I thought his spin was a bit 10yrs behind the curve. I recall David McWilliams and others touching on same topic.
Anyone recall "The Gathering"?

Instead however, he has found himself embroiled in controversy about Travellers that I suspect he landed in inadvertently rather than as part of a strategic strategy to drum up votes.
My understanding is ( and I can't verify this) is that he went against the advice of his campaign team by not meeting representatives of Traveller community in Tipperary when he had the chance. Some of his campaign team have since quit.

I suspect he will announce that he is no longer in the running, or if he does continue there will be scant campaigning, no TV, radio, etc.

This must a huge setback and disappointed for the obscure portion of the population who dream of having an anti-Traveller president and actually thought they had a candidate.
 
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Peter Casey back in the race. He appears to have abandoned his "unite the diaspora" routine for more right-wing ideological nonsense.
His campaign team must have abandoned altogether now - he is running for the wrong office
 
In betting, betting w/o Higgins, Peter Casey has gone from 16/1 to 7/1 today.

At an event last night all the talk was about Casey and a large number were planning to give him their vote - way above what I expected.
 
TheBigShort said:
Peter Casey back in the race. He appears to have abandoned his "unite the diaspora" routine for more right-wing ideological nonsense.
His campaign team must have abandoned altogether now - he is running for the wrong office
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He knows he is not going to win but he is bringing up topics that need to be discussed in Ireland. Nobody is able to argue against his points because they are true and the majority of people know that, they are attacking him because he dared to bring these topics up for discussion in the first place. The usual tactic by the media is to personally assasinate such people so that they disappear from the public discourse and to frighten other people away from talking about these issues. That is the one good thing that will come out of this campaign he will have broken the omerta imposed by the media for so long.
 
joe sod said:
Nobody is able to argue against his points
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Eh, I don't think so.
His 'points' are typical hyperbole. He basically applied wholesale generalisations to the Traveller community, ignoring all the good work that a lot of people from that community have done to break the cycle of poverty, discrimination and disadvantage that faces members of the Traveller community.
His refusal to meet members of the Traveller community in Thurles, which he used to try highlight his 'point', says more about his own ignorance, prejudice and shows how unsuited he is for the office of President.

I agree he is raising issues that need to be discussed. But they are being discussed, in depth. The conclusions of which are to recognize that Travellers have their own ethnic identity. That they face discrimination and disadvantage throughout their lives, perpetuating the cycle of poverty which in no small part leads to poor levels of education, shortened lifespans, welfare dependency and no doubt, in some instances, criminality.

Casey has his views, but unlike all the other candidates for President, his views appear to be based on a one-sided perception. This is how ignorance and prejudice breed.
 
Peter Casey doesn't care about the presidential race. There is no presidential race. Higgins for some reason (voter apathy and lack of alternatives) has the race sown up.

I wouldn't be surprised however if you see Peter Casey on a different ballot paper in the near future. And while he might be guilty of clumsy and some downright stupid comments, mainstream politicians and media better be careful of just writing off these views as some sort of minority, right wing racist view point. There are many ordinary people on ordinary salaries in this Country who see a row about empty 5 bed houses because of lack of land about horses. They see people on welfare do better out of the budget than people in work. They are stuck in unsuitable first time buyer houses as their families grow and unable to move. They spend increasing amount of time commuting to jobs because of lack of spending on infrastructure and being priced out of urban centres. They see the OPC lose €28 million on a land deal involving the HSE. They see a health service that is just swallowing ever increasing amount of tax revenue with no discernible improvement in services. They see billions being spent on social and affordable housing and still read about homeless children so where is the money going? Obviously not to the ones that need it most. We just throw more money at it. The list is endless....

The majority of people in this Country are FF and FG voters. Irish people are by nature centre voters. We have never entertained extreme left or right wing viewpoints. But looking at the reaction to Casey's comments, there is a real complacency that what is happening in other European Countries will never happen here. There was a rush to condemn the comments and write everyone who said he had a point off as racist ignorant imbeciles. If the main political parties don't wake up, we are all going to the pay the cost of increasingly racist and divisive politics.
 
Peter Casey is now doomed after speaking out about those in welfare, sure he has just alienated over 2m people!!!!
 
I just got my Peter Casey "small country BIG NATION" election card in the post today.
- developing relationships with Irish abroad
- develop broadband and 4G for rural areas
- campaign for SME's to penetrate markets abroad to Irish diaspora.
- Increased transparency on the costs of the Presidencey.

Not a word about Travellers or the 'welfare State'.

Im not saying issues surrounding Travellers or our welfare programs should not be discussed, far from it. Im just somewhat perplexed at how Casey has turned his campaign from the above into generalised rhetoric against certain sectors of society.
I would agree with those who think Casey is just using the lowest common denominator as a strategy to boost votes. It is quite cynical actually (after me thinking he was a nice guy!) considering his whole pitch for president was on a different path altogether.

I would agree that he has touched a nerve with some people and that it would be dangerous to ignore such views. When times are tough alot of people have a tendency to finger put poor people, as being the cause of their own hardships.
The same people rarely get as worked up over things such as the quarterly Revenue defaulters list. This list is revealing insofar as it gives a good indication of who in society are really not paying their fair share in taxes.
Even though Casey has not much hope of being elected, even if he did, he wouldn't have done anything about the issues he is raising now - he wouldn't know where to begin. Instead he would've concentrated on what he would probably good at, which is listed on his election literature.
I doubt if we will ever see him again running for public office. He is a man in control of his own affairs, able to make decisions to suit his own needs. Public office is a different beast altogether as George Lee quickly found out.
 
I think Sunny makes an excellent point; as long as the liberal center ignore real and legitimate concerns about abuse of welfare and waste in the provision of public services it undermines our social contract and leaves room for the extremes. Trump, Brexit, Corbyn, Orbán in Hungary and Mateusz in Poland are all symptoms of the same problem; complacent and ineffective centrist governments over the last 20-30 years. The result isn’t just anger at the government, it is the undermining of the institutions of the State and therefore of democracy itself.

South American governments are often run by dictators, from Chavez in one side to Pinochet on the other. The same happens in much of Africa. Democracy has to give us government for the people if it is to prosper and last. At the moment the perception is that our government doesn’t do that and as far as politics is concerned perception is reality.

We ignore the silent majority as our peril as once they start making noise it becomes loud and angry very quickly and actions taken in anger are rarely the correct ones.
 
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