Voting In The Free World

  Election 08 in America continues to generate a level of enthusiasm and debate that can only be dreamed about in Ireland with our own election only months away. 

  The reasons are many.  For one, this will be the first US Presidential Election since 1928 in which an outgoing President or his vice-President has not sought re-election to the office.  George W Bush has served his two terms in office and his vice-President Dick Cheney has long stated his intention not to seek the Republican nomination for 08.  This will enhance the impression of 08 being the year for change and hope, a theme being exploited by many of the candidates, with Democrat candidate Barack Obama canvassing as the candidate ‘for hope’ and fellow Democrat John Edwards election slogan being ‘Tomorow begins today’. 

  Contrast this with our own situation in Ireland when the election result in the summer will herald, almost en bloc, the return of many of the same faces to the seats they vacated only a few weeks previously.

  In the age of celebrity the US Presidential race has a superstar cast, the Democrat race for nomination being contested by previous First Lady Hillary Clinton and wife of arguably the celebrity politician, Bill Clinton.  Barack Obama has been likened to John F Kennedy since his meteoric rise to national prominence following a star speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention.  On the Republican side Time Man of the Year 2001 Rudolph Giuliani remains the most likely Republican candidate for the White House in 2008. 

  Bertie Ahern’s star quality has certainly dipped over the course of his tenure, and surely for the main reason that he has been in the national spotlight for so long that whatever lustre or lure he has as a politician has dipped. And where do we look for a politician with something interesting to say, delivered with the passion of beliefs that don’t upset the political correctness brigade.  Brian Cowen? Pat Rabbitte?  Enda Kenny?  A lot of people would struggle to identify photographs of them, not to mind struggling through ten minutes listening to the latest version of bland centrist politics. 

  And so look to America, so often castigated and maligned in recent years as a whole, for it’s role in Iraq, for genuine candidates of substance and a genuinely engaging political process and election campaign. 

  It is a campaign of firsts.  Hillary Clinton seeks the first nomination from any party to run as a female candidate for President, if successful and elected she would be the first woman President of the USA.  Barack Obama, currently the only African-American Senator, bids to become the first African-American President of America.  Bill Richardson, Democrat, bids to become the first Hispanic President.  John McCain, Republican, bids to become, at 70, the oldest President ever to be inaugurated.  Mitt Romney, Republican, would be the first ever Mormon President, if elected. 

  It seems likely that this election could set the tone for how America is viewed for much of the next century.  But if the list of candidates are anything to go by, it seems that the latest campaign will be one that if fresh and epitomising a change, something a stale political landscape in Ireland can only dream long into the night about. 

  And so, what of the candidates? 

  A Fox News poll of Republican voters places Rudolph Giuliani as their preferred choice at 30%, followed by John McCain on 23% and Mitt Romney on 8%, followed by a list of candidates ranging on the 1% to 3% scale. 

  Rudolph Giuliani came to prominence on a worldwide scale as the Mayor of New York during the terrorist attacks of 9/11.  Awarded an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth for his leadership skills during the crisis, Giuliani was dubbed ‘America’s Mayor’ for the way he personified the fighting spirit of New Yorker’s and America as a whole in the days, weeks and months after the attacks. 

  Born into a household of Italian immigrants, Giuliani was previously US Attorney for New York as a time when many of the cities crime leaders, including Anthony ‘Fat Tony’ Salerno of the Genovese crime family.   Elected the first Republican Mayor of New York since 1969, Giuliani has become a self-made millionaire since leaving the office, through his corporate speaking engagements through his company Giuliani Partners. 

  Giuliani certainly has a colourful private life, having been married three times.  Through his own explanation his first marriage was annulled after 14 years when he and his wife found they were second cousins.  His second wife, American TV personality Donna Hanover, divorced him after he began an alleged affair with one his staff.  A Roman Catholic, strangely for a Republican he is pro-choice on the issue of Abortion and is in favour of civil unions for gay couples. 

  John McCain has long been a firm supporter of sending more troops to Iraq and for this reason has been coming under a lot of media attention as his candidacy gets underway.  Aged 70, McCain believes that ‘I am older than dirt and have more scars than Frankenstein’.  One of these scars, on the side of his face, is the sign of his surviving a skin cancer scare.  During his candidacy for President in 2000 he released 1,500 personal medical files to convince the voters he was fit for office. 

  McCain’s history is just as colourful as that of any of the other candidates, having surivived five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and narrowly escaping death when the jet he was piloting was hit shortly before take-off from a US carrier. 

  Mitt Romney might the least well known of all the front-line candidates, but he certainly carries a CV of some weight.  Governor of Massachusetts he rose to prominence during the infamous 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.  Romney was drafted in when the games ran up a $379m debt, but under his stewardship the games turned over a $100m profit, with Romney himself contributing $1m and donating his fee, of around $750,000 to charity. 

  Romney has been criticised for appearing to support abortion early in his career, but has since hardened his stance, becoming anti-abortion to appeal to core Republican voters, as he also stands against same sex marriages.  67% of Republican voters believe that his Mormon background will not be a factor in the race for the Republican nomination.  Mormons believe that government is divinely inspired, that the Garden of Eden is in Missouri and this is where Christ will come again. 

  Hillary Clinton enters the race at a time when more women hold elected office than at any time in US History, buoyed by Census results that showed nine million more women than men voted in the 2000 election.  A recent Washington Post Poll shows Clinton’s support among women voters rose from 48% to 59% over the past year.  Various polls show her on 33%, well ahead of Obama in the race for the Democrat nomination. 

  Famed for her strength and poise in the wake of the Lewinsky affair, Clinton became Senator for New York in 2001 when achieving 55% of the vote.  Her speech for the candidacy began with the line ‘I’m in. And I’m in to win’.  She seems by far the most likely Democrat candidate and the first female candidate to win the nomination from any party.

 Various polls place Barack Obama on 12-14% as the preferred option of Democrat voters.  44% of voters in December Fox News Poll declared that Obama does not have enough experience, having only served two years in the Senate, but 74% believed that being African-American doesn’t matter when it comes to claiming the Democrat nomination. 

  Rather than deflect from his lack of experience Obama has campaigned on it.  Obama believes that while he may have only spent two years in Washington it has been enough time for him to see what changes need to be made there, an old regime that he has never been a part of.  When John Kerry won the Democrat nomination in 2000 Repulican’s had over twenty years papers from Kerry’s time in Senate to pick holes in, Obama doesn’t seem to have had the requisite time to collect any such skeletons in the closet. 

  Obama announced his candidacy in Illinois, where he had 8 years state legislature and 2 years senate experience, exactly the same timed served as Abraham Lincoln, who, from the same spot, had campaigned on uniting a divided nation after calling for an end to slavery.  

  Bill Richardson, 14 years a senator for New Mexico, Chairman of the 2004 Democratic convention, Governor of New Mexico, pervious Secretary fro Energy and US Ambassador to the UN, holds more political experience than Clinton, Obama and fellow candidate John Edwards added together.  

  He bids to become the first Hispanic President of America.  Currently he holds a support of only between 1-3% with Democrat voters, despite apperaing to be the most qualified and experienced candidate in the race.  It should be noted that in the last 30 years the only 2 Democrat candidates elected to the office of President had previously held the office of Governor, making Richardson the only current candidate to back up this statistic for the Democrats.  

  John Edwards, John Kerry’s running mate in the 2000 election, seems to be the only other Democrat capable of winning the nomination from his party.  Dubbed the ‘YouTube’ candidate for his willingness to use the website to upload personal videos to his voters, Edwards retains the dubious title of being voted the ‘sexiest politican alive’ by People Magazine.  

  A self-made millionaire through his time as a personal injury lawyer, Edwards was prompted to move into politics following the death of his son.  His major plan for election victory centers on his Health Care plan for America.  It will cost $200billion a year and will be financed by higher taxes for Americans who earn more than $200,000 a year.  

  Edwards seems to be the most media literate of the politicans in the race, having his continued links to youtube, his own election blog and announcing his candidacy via the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  

  Odds for the Primaries show Hillary Clinton trading at around evens, Obama at 3/1, Edwards at 5/1 and Richardson at 20/1.  On the Republican side John McCain trades at evens with Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani at 4/1.  

  Bookmakers rate Clinton a 2/1 shot to be the next President, McCain at 4/1, Edwards at 6/1 with Obama, with Giuliani at 10/1. 

  As for the Irish equivalent, look under ‘two bald men fighting over a comb’.  It’s more interesting. 

     

The value of a good teacher.

 Last weeks papers carried the news that the Department of Education is to ask Boards of Management to sack under-performing teachers.  While listening to a discussion on Newstalk 106 it struck me that more and more any reaction or focus on education seems to be anchored firmly in negative connotations.   

Of course, bad news sells and there is a reason for papers and radio stations to lead with news that creates discussion and provokes opinion and comment.  Couple this with the fact that a huge majority of people have passed through the education system and feel that this gives them an insight into how it works.  I’m not a trained carpenter, plumber or doctor, so I’d feel at a disadvantage to begin criticising their work practices, but there seems to be an open-season when it comes to assessing the performance of teachers.

It led me to think of the work that so many teachers do that is appreciated by students and their parents, but can get lost when it comes to the opinions of the mass general public. 

It lead me to think of Mr. O’ Connor, my History and Geography teacher, a man that always had an encouraging word to say.  I remember usually being the last to leave his class when the bell rang and he’d stay and chat for a few minutes about the latest goings on at Liverpool or some other sporting discussion.  For the sake of a couple of minutes you always walked away from him feeling two feet taller.  Surely that’s the measure of the skill of any person, let alone a teacher.

I though of Ms. Murray, my English teacher.  The day in class she approached me, took my English essay copy and read the beginning of an essay to the class as an example of good writing.  Now believe me, Roddy Doyle and Stephen King can rest easy in Literary Towers, but of course I walked away from the class thinking that I was destined for the Nobel Prize For Great Beginnings to Secondary School Essays. 

I thought of Mr. Kelly, a man who never thought me, but took the football teams.  I still remember vividly the morning I stood in the main hall in the school at break-time and the windows were full of the condensation of a cold winters morning.  He began to work out the formation and tactics on the window using the condensation as his ink.  Bizarre, but memorable and indicative of his enthusiasm for the game and for young people.  He’d often give a few of the players a lift home from training at the school, and when playing for your club at the weekend it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him on the sideline watching and come Monday there’d be a discussion on what you did well, but what you needed to improve. 

There was Mr. O’ Drisceoil, a man born speaking Gaeilge.  Not just content with organising a wonderful weekend trip to Cape Clear for the 4th Year group, his strength and courage when faced with the death of a student in our year in tragic circumstances was incredible.  I remember the sense of discomfort and numbness as the class sat for the first class after our friends death, Mr. O’ Drisceoil standing before the class.  He took a deep breath, looked as if he were to speak and then sat on top of a table in the class. 

He just scanned us all and told us he had gone into his garden the day before, sat there and thought of what he could say to us, but nothing had come to him and he had sat there and cried.  Somehow, in a moment of stunning vulnerability and honesty, his words made it possible for the rest of us to feel and manage our grief. 

There was Mr. Moynihan, a Maths teacher who found the way to negotiate solutions to mathematical problems from a mind I was convinced was completely devoid of all understanding of numbers.  Yet it was his words of advice, delivered in a soft easy voice that helped us settle into secondary school.  Tragically, he was taken from the students too soon, dying suddenly at home.

Mr. Ring jogged with us when training the soccer team, Mr. Gaffy was straight talking in his advice, Mr. Halbert always had a quip ready, usually based on local GAA rivalry too.   Mr. Murphy summoned reams of notes from the back of his library mind that seemed to cover every word written since time began, and with a sublime wit as sharp as Stanley knife. 

Thinking back now it strikes me that they weren’t just great teachers, but primarily great people.  You walked away from them feeling you were a person of value, and without sounding too Disney about the situation, at a time in your life when your mind isn’t renowned for thinking things through in a calm and assured way, their advice and encouragement was crucial. 

I think many people carry similar experiences with them.  Many times when people learn of what I do for a living you are met by a story or a memory of a teacher that went out of their way to do something to help them.

And it isn’t in a razzmatazz lights and action way.  When I think of the fantastic bunch of teachers I work with in TCS, I think of a lot of people going about their work in a very quiet, subtle way, work that has an extremely relevant effect on the people they not only teach, but help.  It isn’t only the students that learn from them.  

There are a lot of people waking to the sound of an alarm clock and a fulfilling career every morning, there because good people in teaching demanded the best of them, or lent a subtle helping hand. 

Even away from the career and the job, there are a lot of people in their adult lives that know the value of a good teacher.

Welcome to Croke Park, feel free to make noise.

  In the closing minutes of Chelsea’s recent 2-0 defeat to Liverpool at Anfield in the FA Premiership the Sky Sports cameras panned to Chelsea’s wildly entertaining one man theatre show manager, the indomitable Portuguese Jose Mourinho. 

 As the scouse hoards belted out the traditional end of game chorus of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ you couldn’t help but feel that Mourinho was breathing in the heartbeat of what is one of the last vestiges of real passion is a sports stadium in Britain.  To even see the inside of Stamford Bridge can cost to the top-end of ninety euros.  The working mans game indeed. 

 This weekend the premier stadium of Irish sport, Croke Park, will heave to the rhythm of eighty two thousand souls as Dublin welcome Tyrone to the hallowed sod for the first game under floodlights in the Drumcondra venue.  The pubs around Croker will ring to the sound of true blues and, if they arrive on time, they’ll be treated to the sight of GAA President Nicky Brennan flicking the first switch that starts the meter running on the electricity bill for the floodlights. 

 Ever since Cork entertained Kerry in Pairc Ui Rinn in the first ever National League game played under lights a couple of years back, it has been clear that the way forward for national games in the country was the atmosphere provided by the dawning of the nighttime lights.  There is nothing Irish people love more than to treat a sporting fixture as a social occasion and the sight of Croker at night time should have Mountjoy square buzzing come Saturday evening.

The real stars of the show of course will be the Dublin and Tyrone footballers, sharing together in the historic occasion.  The lads you can bump into on the Sunday while strolling into the shop for your pint of milk.  Real sportsmen, real fans, a real stadium real atmosphere.

It will be interesting to see if the rugby and soccer brethren can match the pounding din from Croker come their international days out.  It has to be said that the atmosphere generated from the old Lansdowne Road was much in keeping with the ramshackle old appearance of the South-side venue over it’s last fading years.  Indeed, eager viewers of RTE’s coverage of these games in the pre-Sky era would have heard the strains of ‘Silent night’ emanating from a few wags in the seats during a game against Israel in the Brian Kerr era.  Even the affable Kerr seem to lose entertainment value within the old concrete bowl. 

The IRFU has decided to charge supporters eighty euro for stand tickets and thirty for terrace tickets for the privilege, while, as well documented in another outstanding piece of PR for the FAI, they raised ticket prices by 32% for the switch over O’ Connell Bridge.  You will now pay between fifty and seventy euro for a ticket to view Stan’s stooges.  Not that there is anything much to complain about, supply and demand and so on.

Yet it puts into perspective the fantastic value that the GAA always provides for its patrons when they visit Croke Park.  For a better product as well.

Now, don’t get the wrong impression, this isn’t a rant through the narrow eyes of grumpy, wait for following posts for that, but consider this.  Stephen Staunton’s latest Irish squad contains professional sportsmen that would come in at the ‘honest but journeyman’ range of the market rather than the colourful characters of the GAA world. 

GAA characters can relate to a Jason Sherlock, a Henry Shefflin, a Diarmuid O’ Sullivan, a Colm Cooper, an Eoin Kelly, a Davy Fitzgerald, a Kieran McGeeney - the list is endless, sportsmen who are masters of their craft, and not only that, in the highly sanitised Sky Sports editions of English football, but also characters of the highest order, they draw adulation and ire in equal amounts depending on the supporters you speak to. 

But for the Irish squad? Stephen Hunt, an honest Waterford boy, but he would draw as much excitement from a crowd as mayonnaise would extract from a limp lettuce leaf.  The list is equally endless.  Wayne Henderson, Nick Colgan, Darren Randolph, Ian Harte, Jonathan Douglas, Alan Quinn, Andy Keogh, Stephen Elliot, distinctly average if honest pros from the backwaters of English football.  These are the men expected to draw noise levels reminiscent of a U2 concert from the stands around Croker.

The rugby troupe might be able to point to superb, truly skilled international sportstars the ilk of Brian ‘ Driscoll, Paul O’ Connell, Ronan O’ Gara and Jerry Flannery when the hot whiskey and steak sandwich brigade hit the Hill, but let them not convince you of the true skill element of rugby when compared to the national games of football and, especially, the ancient craft of hurling. 

One suspects that opening Croke Park to these sports might be the best advertisement it has ever given it’s own games.  For how can Croke Park move to same beat as when the Dubs are in full flow in the thick of summer, or the Rebels or the Cats roll into town at the business end of the hurling championships.  

Most of the supporters at these games have a tradition following Gaelic Games built into their gene pool, with a significant number having played the games competitively at some stage.  There is a true and genuine sense of pride, no genetically modified Sky passion or excitement here, just an honest to goodness sense of identity with the games and the team that represents their home-place.  This is what generates what no amount of millions of TV monies or wealthy Russian benefactors can create within a true sporting stadium, those genuine hair on the back of your neck moments that throw you headlong into the rush of sporting frenzy.  

To the fans that fill Croker for the rugby and soccer games, well, how many of them can lay claim to the same heritage within these games? This isn’t a simplistic criticism of soccer and rugby, I have stood on the terraces at Lansdowne for both codes.  It is the asking of a very simple question.  How many rugby and soccer fans attend their club games on a regular basis?  Munster and Leinster games fall into the representative category of major sporting occasion, as only Heineken Cup games can be described.  

What I’m asking is how many of these fans find their way to Temple Hill, the back pitch at Lansdowne, Terenure, Tolka Park or Flancare Park every second weekend?  Where is the culture of supporting a team, as a true fan does,on a regular basis? Even Maccesfield Town, in the basement positions of the last division of the English football league can count on 2,000 plus hardy souls every second weekend, a figure that many Eircom League or AIL Clubs would only be too happy of.  Surely this non-culture of attending these games must effect the atmosphere when it comes to international fixtures.  

Rest easy residents of Drumcondra, after the Dubs and Tyrone this Saturday night the noise generated from that nearby stadium might yet resemble more The Eagles than U2 in the coming months.  Just brace yourself for the passion and terror of the real games once the summer arrives.