The Kestrel Echo*

In recent years Baraka Obama and Tony Blair have famously used on-line initiatives to conduct ‘listening exercises’ to engage with their electorate. Both were successful, particularly for Mr. Obama, in so far as they reinforced their message, gained support by engaging with people, and extend their reach by empowering others to advocate on their behalf. While FG seem to be aiming to emulate these successes the content of their message and quality of delivery has constantly let them down.

Shortly after it was launched the website was hacked. This was claimed to have been done by members of the infamous Anonymous group, though they later denied their involvement. Embarrassment aside, a more serious aspect of this was that the private details of over 2000 people who had left comments on the site were also compromised. This also highlighted the fact that they were hosting their site outside Ireland. So much for making every effort to support Irish jobs.

Since that fumbled start FG have only gone from bad to worse. ‘Geting’ further away from a compelling rally call with every press release, most recently the ‘Twolicy’ has to go down as one of the most absurd footnotes in Irish political PR. From a professional perspective it seems I could rightly pour scorn on the FG campaign effort all the way up to the election.

However the result of a poll on a prominent Irish news site, Journal.ie, sparked a reconsideration in my view. I remain hugely unimpressed with the FG effort yet 45% think it will have a positive effect. In a manner this represents a high proportion of voters. Do those 45% consider the FG effort to be better than nothing, or are they 45% who are not burdened with the critical eye that can see so many flaws in the threadbare, online tapestry FG have hung out?

This gives me pause, bearing in mind that many people really couldn’t care less if a website is IE6 compliant or using the sexiest mobile/HTML5/synergy-tastic/iOS/socially integrated widget thingy. Being well informed in online trends and technologies dictates that this shouldn’t be the case but knowledge and democratic mob rule don’t necessarily go hand in hand. Therein realising that I have lost focus on the real issues.

The clamour surrounding #GE11 only acts as a further distraction to the real issues at hand. Crippling bank debts born of criminally negligent governance, a public sector so grossly costly that any merit it earns is consistently squandered, and a nation so apparently apathetic that all manner of mis-management goes unchecked. Regardless of our current position we are the masters of our destiny, that is a route our social and political system is supposed to affords us. But it must be earned, it must be taken in hand and wielded.