The Atlantic Current, Ep. 44: Forecasting The By-Elections With Richard Collumb
The pod gets its first guest: Richard Collumb, described by one minister as “the best director of elections ever”. Collumb provides expert insights into Friday’s by-elections in Galway West and Dublin Central, seeing good news for one government party, trouble for another, and the potential for not one, but two, leadership changes in the near future.
Episode Links:
Fun With By-Elections
In the introduction, Tull and Vince noted that most by-elections were caused by the untimely death of the sitting TD. In April, RTE, Ireland’s national broadcaster, helpfully broke down the drivers of by-elections over the country’s 100 year-plus history:
The “other reasons” bar in the 1920s is driven by a steep number of by-elections in 1925 (a record nine, as cited by Vince early in this episode). Those in turn followed the Army Mutiny of the year prior, which led to a wave of resignations aimed to force a protest vote. The vote didn’t really happen, in part because of poor organization by the protesting TDs, and the leadership of W.T. Cosgrave remained secure.
That story is covered by another RTE piece, this one from 2021, which examines some of the wilder by-elections in Irish history. A 1968 contest re-opened old wounds from the Civil War. Apparently, a 1975 contest (won by future Taoiseach Enda Kenny, in one of the rare by-election wins completed on the first count) featured a “an Dublin TD accidentally strangling a donkey”. We are trying desperately to understand precisely what happened there; we’ve reached out to the author to get more detail, but perhaps we are all better off not knowing.
The Figures On Political Spending
Tull called out the work by Liz Carlin at thebriefing.ie. Here is her excellent summary from last week on election spending in Ireland.
Update, Ep. 6: January 6 And The Aftermath
In Episode 6, Vince discussed the travails of Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who chose to confirm Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services near the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term. (We had more on that in the show notes for Episode 42 as well.)
Despite supporting the confirmation of one of Trump’s most controversial Cabinet nominees, Cassidy became a target of the president during a recent Republican primary for his Senate seat. (Perhaps in large part because Cassidy was also one of seven GOP senators to convict Trump during impeachment proceedings in 2021.) This weekend, Cassidy lost a three-way primary, and will exit his seat in January.
It is perhaps tempting to have some sympathy for Cassidy; an essay we linked to last week certainly expressed that. But his actions since his loss perhaps suggest otherwise. Almost immediately, Cassidy switched his vote to supporting a war powers resolution aimed at forcing Donald Trump to withdraw armed forces from Iran.
Given the lack of movement in the war since Cassidy’s last vote, it’s nearly impossible to avoid the conclusion that Cassidy previously only voted — on a matter of literally global importance, and of course to his own country’s military — to protect his then-dwindling chances of surviving the primary. As with the RFK vote, Cassidy once again has sacrificed its integrity to keep his seat — and clearly lost both in the process.
Meanwhile, Trump’s hold on his party appears stronger than ever. In Ep. 6, Vince remarked on how quickly Republicans coalesced around Trump in the days after January 6, and the way in which the American right sought to re-write the history of the day.
Both trends have only accelerated. A $1.776 billion fund for ‘reparations’, targeted mostly to those who were convicted of or pled guilty to crimes related to January 6, has been created after Trump withdrew a $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, the agency responsible for collecting federal taxes. Cassidy lost his primary; Representative Thomas Massive (R-Ky.), who became a thorn in Trump’s side, did the same after Trump endorsed his opponent. While the president’s approval ratings skid to historic lows, even now his base has not gone anywhere (more on this coming on Friday).
Links For Ep. 6:
Bertie Ahern’s “Gotcha”
Tull and Richard referenced an incident with former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern as potentially changing how candidates and their supporters campaign in Ireland. Ahern was speaking with a supporter and — unbeknownst to him — was being recorded at the time. After the woman with whom he was speaking raised concerns about immigration and sharia law, Ahern responded that the “ones I worry about are the Africans…I think there’s too many from those places.”
The video has caused a political kerfuffle, with both current Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Simon Harris criticizing Ahern’s comments. Other politicians have asked for an apology. One imagines that the mere existence of the video was quite a shock to the 74-year-old Ahern, whose 11-year run as Taoiseach from 1997 to 2008 came in a very different political environment. And, as both Tull and Richard pointed out, this video is likely to change how politicians canvass — if anything can be filmed, politicians ostensibly will act as if they are always on television (Morning Ireland, to be specific, as Richard said half-jokingly).
Tull On The Murderer Canvassing For Sinn Féin
On the pod, Tull called out the case of Eamonn Nolan, a convicted killer who canvassed for Sinn Féin candidate Cllr Janice Boylan. Nolan, a former member of the Irish Republican Army, murdered Eamon Ryan during a bank robbery in 1979.
The case later made headlines when, in 2013, Sinn Féin gave an award to the man who had been the getaway driver for the robbery. This week, Tull took time to remember the case in a typically brilliant and thoughtful post. It’s a piece that, for readers and listeners outside of Ireland, provides some real (and much-needed) color to the reputation of and the sentiment toward the IRA in Ireland:
Richard’s Money Quotes
On the attention around Gerry Hutch’s run in the Dublin Central by-election:
I think there’s a lot of noise, but very little else about Hutch. I don’t think he’s going to do as well as people think and he will transfer primarily I think to Sinn Féin or places like that.
And on how one of the government parties is positioned in the constituency:
So for what would have been Fianna Fáil heartland with Bertie Ahern, it is just a absolute disaster. There’s no other way of putting it for them. There’s no way to gloss it in any way, shape or form.
Tull’s Money Quotes
Agreeing with Richard on the prospects for Fianna Fáil
I think it’s just as well that they had their national conference last weekend. If it was on Saturday or Sunday this weekend, it might have been Marie Antoinette scenes, guillotines in the hallways of the Ard Fheis and stuff like that.
On explaining the Irish electoral system to Americans:
You could have three Republicans and three Democrats fighting for three seats between them. Okay. I think that’s the long and short of it. And it’s such an alien concept when I tried to explain it to people from the United States, they think I’m joking with them. They genuinely think I’m joking with them, ‘Look at this thick Yank over here’.