Gemma O’Doherty failed to secure a nomination to contest the Presidency of Ireland
If you ask for votes some people choose
To consider it and then refuse
So it’s best to keep calm
Don’t throw toys from the pram
It’s not fascism just ’cause you lose
John Moynes
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She’s really upped the insanity levels in the past 24 hours. Claiming that asking her about her social views is fascism and in her new Republic anyone questioning her methods would have their citizenship revoked.
And you lot are fully behind her?
she didn’t object to anyone asking about her social views, but you already know that. she objected to someone cornering her and demanding to know how she voted.
For clarity, this is what she actually said: “A couple of people associated with those parties demanded to know how I voted in the abortion referendum. This is a form of fascism.”
If you run for public office, its entirely reasonable to want to know how people stand on public policy issues and its quite unreasonable to take umbrage at being asked and comparing it to facism.
Well, well, well, – how did you vote Owen?
I voted to repeal. Not a simple vote for me, but weighing up pros and cons etc that was my choice. Note that even though I’m not running for public office, I still found it relatively easy to answer this question.
Well, Owen isn’t running for public office.
Tbh, if she was asked about it, and just responded with “well, I believe that the privacy of the ballot box is sacrosanct, so I won’t be divulging how I voted on x or y”, I would think that is fair enough. But throwing around ‘fascists’ willy-nilly would indicate to me that a person might be lacking the gravitas and decorum required for the role of Uachtarán.
you’ve contradicted yourself and done the very same thing as tom, owen
asked your views on public or social policy is fine
demanding to know how you voted isn’t fine
I’m unclear if your issue is demand vs ask or policy vs vote?
If its policy vs vote, I’m reasonably sure Gemma actually never properly answered either question, but I may be wrong on that. Nevertheless, I think asking about how people voted is a reasonable question as it gives a black and white answer to what can be fluffy and vague political answering of the question.As i said, I think the idea of “its my private business” is an extremely naive take when running for public office.
If its ask vs demand, we’re talking about semantics here.
It’s disappointing how at least 3 self-promoting types who have added little to our society can get nominations. Gemma, at least has done some service for us all by sticking it to official Ireland. Oh, I get it now.
one consolation is that at least two of those three won’t get their campaign spend back
I think the fact that some of the successful candidates are as vanilla as vanilla can be helped them. Safe ground for councillors. I have no strong feelings for or against Gamma O’Doherty, but it may have been better to play the game until she was on the ballot, then let loose.
i think the most accurate assessment i read from any commenter here was ‘there’s an awful bang of renua off her’.
i’ve deliberately not posted an opinion of her one way or the other during her campaign for nomination, but i have no problem stating a position now. i think she finds it hard to listen to people, and for someone who claims to be a staunch defender of democracy she’s just not a terribly good democrat. still, i recognise that she at least doesn’t see democracy as a thing that works only for her and her mates the way FFFG do, but it’s not enough in my book.