I’m going to disappoint some readers right off the bat here (and, in the nature of these things, cheer some others up): I don’t think there’s much of a chance that newly re-elected Senator Sharon Keogan will toss her hat in the ring for the Presidency, later this year. In fact I think there’s no chance.
The idea that she might came – as many insightful ideas do – from Virgin Media’s Political Editor, Gavan Reilly, who tossed that grenade into the mix in his weekly column:
Indeed, that jocular tweet aside, I’ll disappoint you definitively: The woman herself tells me that she has “no intention” and has already committed herself to backing a certain other unnamed candidate, should that person throw their name into the ring as she hopes they might.
That said, the fact that the speculation even exists is tribute to the rise and rise of the Meath Senator.
Last week’s Seanad election saw her pick up a thumping 112 votes in her Seanad election, more than doubling the 49 votes she received when first elected. Those numbers might seem small, but remember that the electorate is tiny, and (in theory) highly discerning. Those who can vote are TDs and County Councillors – politically aware and motivated people who see every day how their colleagues work, and what they achieve.
Talk to councillors around the country and the thing that stands out about Senator Keogan is her work ethic. The nature of being a Senator – especially one elected by fellow politicians – is that aside from the national issues which garner attention, you have to take care of your own electorate. In Keogan’s case, that electorate is County Councillors. At least two of them tell me that she does far more for them than Senators of any other party – constantly circulating information on new Government schemes and grants and funding opportunities that those councillors can, in turn, use to aid their constituents and build up support in their communities.
This is of particular importance to independent councillors, who lack the “party machine” that their colleagues in Sinn Fein or Fianna Fáil might have. Senator Keogan has effectively made her Seanad office a “one stop shop” for those local politicians who need national support.
Critics of the Senator would note that she is not always the most fluent public speaker in her chamber, and that there are others in politics who are better natural communicators. There have certainly been occasions where a more deftly crafted speech might have limited the opportunities for the media to refer to her, as so many of them do, as “controversial”. But what those critics can fail to notice is that Keogan has been remarkably effective at the basic crafts of politics: Building relationships, often across ideological divides. Serving the people who elected her. Providing the clientelist service to her voters that success in Irish politics demands.
And that she has done all these things while building an enormous base of public support outside the Seanad chamber, calculating her interventions to appeal to the growing – if still disorganised – populist trend in the Irish electorate. There is nobody, any more, who knows anything about Irish politics, who would be stupid enough to write her off as anything other than a very serious operator.
Which is why, I think, her absence from the Presidential campaign is both a good decision for her, and a poor one for the country.
A good decision for the Senator because, to be frank, she would not and cannot win. The Presidency is a high bar – you need to be able to either clear 50% on the final count, or get closer to it than anyone else. There simply are too many liberal, pro-establishment candidates in the country for that to be possible for someone with Senator Keogan’s public profile. As we have seen over the last few years in Ireland, left-wing voters have really made “vote left, transfer left” into a very powerful tool. Senator Keogan could not, realistically, hope to overcome that and win. And the effort would probably damage her, without delivering any hope of victory.
It’s a pity for the country, though, because somebody with Senator Keogan’s profile is exactly what is needed in that Presidential campaign. She would sail to a nomination – a high bar – if she wanted one. She would offer a very distinctive, very common sense voice, in the debates. She would, I suspect, command an army of enthusiastic volunteers, and raise money for her campaign without great difficulty. And, for all that some might deride her (unfairly) as a parliamentary communicator, I think they miss something: That the Senator has that Peter-Casey-esque ability to articulate a complicated idea pithily, in the way that even the most low-information voter can understand.
The election would benefit from her presence.
In any case, it won’t happen. Which is a pity, in many respects.