Catherine Connolly was late arriving into Dublin on Tuesday morning – her bus from Galway diverted from the motorway due to a traffic accident.
By the time she arrived at Leinster House, where she was due to attend a protest by broadcast workers in the Oireachtas seeking better pay and conditions, a pack of journalists were waiting.
An information note sent out the previous night by People Before Profit, one of the three left-wing parties backing her campaign, had promised Connolly – the only confirmed candidate in the presidential field – would take questions. But that morning, her campaign staff insisted none was to take place.
A back-and-forth between the press and her team ensued. Connolly eventually took a few questions before her handlers cut the exchange short. Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik, who had been positioned to her left during the short exchange, gently guided Connolly away. A “communication issue” was blamed afterwards.
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All told, it was relatively innocuous – if messy.
However, in the pressure cooker of an election, politically transmissible moments can turn a race. Afterwards people close to the campaign worried about how it would be perceived – about an “attempted narrative of ‘she’s not answering questions’,” one said the following day.
As the only confirmed candidate, Connolly is rightly wary of such moments. And her campaign, drawing support and resources from disparate elements, must find its feet as she fights to become the first Independent president.
Campaign support
The unique nature of Connolly’s campaign means new structures have been formed over summer.
The core team is led by campaign manager Béibhinn O’Connor, her long-time parliamentary assistant, and Céile Varley, a barrister who also previously worked part-time for Connolly.
The three left-wing parties backing her – Labour, The Social Democrats and PBP – have also undertaken to second staff directly to the campaign, although Labour will not send a staffer until September.
[ What Catherine Connolly says on Ukraine, the EU and SyriaOpens in new window ]
Each party has a TD interacting with the campaign – Labour’s Ciarán Ahern, acting Social Democrats leader Cian O’Callaghan and Paul Murphy for PBP. The three are in frequent contact with the campaign and there is a weekly strategy meeting. Sources report no sign of former left-wing Independent TDs and MEPs Mick Wallace or Clare Daly, as of yet.
So far, Connolly has kept a relatively low-profile. This is not especially surprising, risk-averse perhaps, but behind the scenes, sources involved with the campaign argue that work had to be done establishing structures, as well as looking to generate momentum.
Connolly’s campaign says it has attracted almost 5,000 volunteers, and raised more than €50,000 from small donors, averaging €31 a donor.
Allies believe this is the start of a grassroots-powered campaign that could swell to as many as 50,000 volunteers, with plans already being made for so-called “affinity groups” (the likes of “artists for Catherine” etc).
The model is that of the Together for Yes, which powered repeal of the Eighth Amendment in 2018. This week, the campaign has been forming groups in each constituency to shape an organisational backbone – the hope is that pre-existing branch structures, where available, from the three parties can be deputised.
For an Independent candidate, tapping into this infrastructure could be vital – as will money. The parties have also been asked to provide support. Parties are limited by campaign finance rules in what they can donate, so individual party representatives are likely to make donations, while parties can also absorb costs of printing materials or other outgoings.
Inevitably, there is politics here. Some in the Labour Party have no intention of putting their hands in their pockets personally, while the Social Democrats have not decided what way they will contribute. PBP is thought to have set a target of donating €10,000 between members, representatives and the party.
Sinn Féin and unity
The big question is whether Sinn Féin will bring its considerable heft to the campaign. Connolly admitted this week the party is taking longer than she would like with its decision, and others on the left suspect it will run its own candidate.
Some in Sinn Féin feel what they have seen so far is “fairly underwhelming”, including the low profile of the summer months.
One party TD privately argued Connolly faces a recognition gap relative to Fine Gael’s Heather Humphreys, who is front-runner to secure her party’s nomination.
She is well known in politics, in her constituency and among activists, but in a contest where small margins will matter, “ultimately it’ll boil down to a personality contest,” says the TD.
In a tight race, they say, a five to six-point swing could win it, and that segment may be late-breaking voters who decide based on what little they know about a candidate.
“If I was running Catherine Connolly’s campaign, I would have said your job is to get on the news as much as possible,” says the TD.
The campaign says she has been active across the country meeting and listening to voters.
Sinn Féin has made it clear it believes the campaign, and the successful president, should actively foreground unity. Connolly expressed a belief in a united Ireland when announcing her candidacy, and again in Belfast this week, which was appreciated by some in Sinn Féin, but not all are convinced.
Those close to her campaign are cagey about just how prominently unity will feature and say that neutrality, the triple lock, Gaza, the Irish language and disabilities as among the main issues for the campaign.
One subtext to the campaign, a source says, will be to try to mobilise voters who might otherwise stay home but are inclined to deal the Government a blow. There will also be an effort to present the left as cohesive.
A question for Labour
On Wednesday, Labour’s Alan Kelly let rip at his own party over its endorsement of Connolly, saying it needed to show some self-respect rather than backing a candidate who left the party in 2006.
Memorably, Connolly said after her 2016 election that Labour, then suffering a pasting at the hands of the electorate, had “lost its soul”. She had previously fallen out with the party over its refusal to run her alongside incumbent Galway West TD, Michael D Higgins.
Kelly’s views were well known within the party, but the public intervention drew criticism from some colleagues – one Labour figure sniping that Kelly “has a history of making bad calls, which is why his leadership of the party was so short”. Afterwards Kelly expressed “regret” in a private message to Labour representatives
Nonetheless, he is ventilating wider concerns in the party. Labour sources admit there was a “substantial portion” of the party unconvinced. A survey of members before endorsement showed 58 per cent supported backing her – a comfortable, but hardly thumping, majority.
One source likens the decision to the Mullingar Accord – Labour’s ill-starred pre-election transfer pact with Fine Gael in 2007: something which there are misgivings about, but which foot soldiers will back because the leadership wants it.
However, even supporters of Connolly within Labour fear her approach to foreign affairs brings risk.
“She has great values, a great analysis of the world,” one says, adding: “She has to work on how she presents it.”
Connolly’s camp knows she will be targeted over these views by her opponents. Labour supporters who back Connolly argue that it has to appeal to younger voters and to “be a bit more radical than we have been for the last 15 years” – and also be part of the only election for several years, during which a new cohort will become politically active.
As the campaign proper begins to gather pace, Connolly’s effort is taking shape. The test will be how all the parts fit together.
