On your Marks, Get Set

by Mike Bray

According to the bookmakers, the race for who will top the poll in the East constituency is already over. Paddy Power has Mairead Mc Guinness at 1/20 to top the poll and at 1/100 to retain her seat. This is a fine example of how Ms. Mc Guinness’ popularity has grow in five years seeing as she was 20/1 to top the poll in 2004.

Although the polls are where most people look at election time, the bookies are also a great place to look to see who is most likely to win the seat when you consider these people have to earn their living from the odds they put out. Paddy Power feels that the other two seats will go to Liam Aylward (1/10) of Fianna Fail and Labour’s Nessa Childers (1/6). They seem to think the only other candidate with a realistic change to challenging for a seat is Senator John Paul Phelan of Fine Gael.

Nessa Childers has come under pressure in recent week for her lack of knowledge of the agricultural sector in an area were it is at the heart of every debate and the East is also the constituency which returned three candidates with strong agricultural links in 2004. Childers has been very quite in the debates and on the canvass too. I feel her strong poll showings are more a reflection of the national performance of the party and leader Eamon Gilmore rather than Ms. Childers herself.

It’s very hard to know how Liam Aylward will do in the current climate and with the possibly of a strong protest vote against Fianna Fail in one of its heartlands. However I feel that he will just about cross over the line with the help of the transfers’ sponge candidate Thomas Byrne soaks up in the north of the constituency.

Every Tom, Dick and Harry is saying that Mairead McGuinness will not just top the poll but she will cross it with a possible record result. While I feel she will top the poll, I don’t think she will win it as easily as many think (she will still win easily). Many voters will have heard the media saying all she has to do is turn up at the count, but I think many will hear this and feel it may then be a waste of a vote seeing as she is home and dry and decide to give their first preference to another candidate. However McGuinness will still have enough to carry Phelan across the line.

So there it is I’m actually going to go against the bookies and call the three seats for Mairead McGuinness, Liam Aylward and the outside bet of John Paul Phelan.