Maman Poulet

From the Whitehouse website a rare insight into the holding of a cabinet meeting under Obama. I know the Irish cabinet confidentiality rule will be rolled out here to say why it couldn’t happen but I would support any insight into how politics works here from my perusal of youtube comments and facebook groups the past few days. Some people think for example that Deputy Gogarty is an opposition TD. Very few people know how a bill is debated, amended and passed in the Irish parliamentary system. (cf. The Civil Partnership Bill).

There is a huge opportunity here for a TD or Senator, television programme or even the government press office to do a series of short videos explaining how the Irish political system works.

Back to Obama’s cabinet – it meets rarely and of course there are different responsibilities and obligations to one such as the Irish government. I wonder if Ministers leave their phones outside with post-its’ attached? In fact this may be a solution for the Seanad’s Cathaoirleach who is still having problems with Senator’s phones interfering with the sound system! But I wouldn’t want him getting any ideas that would stop the tweets!

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Congratulations to Cllr Ruth Illingworth on her election as Mayor/ Cathaoirleach of Mullingar Town Council.

Ruth is being described as Ireland’s first Out Mayor a tag I think she doesn’t really have much truck with. I do think she’s probably one of the first elected out lesbian councillors in the state. A member of Fine Gael, Cllr Illingworth has spoken out about homophobic bullying and the role of the Catholic Church in education/management of schools.

She was interviewed on Tuesday by Matt Cooper on The Last Word and spoke about lesbian and gay issues and her personal experiences of coming out.

A historian, Cllr Illingworth plans on donating her allowance to charities in the town.

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On Friday night next in the City North Hotel more Obama juice arrives to be sold to Irish politicians. This appears to be a very watered down version being sold at an expensive price.

Recently local authority councillors received leaflets from a company based in Antrim called Performance Enhancement.

The company announced that it was hosting a seminar entitled ‘How to run a Campaign – The Democratic Party Way. ‘

The leaflet proclaimed that delegates would learn

• 5 rules of Effective Political Organizing

• How to target voters using Low Intensity and High Intensity voter Contact Strategies.

• Successful Strategies for targeting Women , Younger and Older Voters

• Canvassing ; Learn the ‘Cushion, Position, Close’ approach to dealing with voters. Setting and achieving canvassing goals

• Developing and implementing a Media Plan. Using Earned Media and Op Eds and letters columns.

• Phone banking. Does it work?

• How to run a Focus group on a shoestring budget

• Managing political volunteers

• Get Out The Vote. The 3 Rules of a GOTV strategy.

The person imparting the wisdom is ‘top’ Democratic Activist Marty Dunleavy.

Marty we are told is a veteran Campaign Consultant and Manager of many campaigns in over 40 States at local and national level and is a SuperDelegate to the Democratic National Convention by virtue of membership of the DNC’s  “ethnic coordinating committee. Marty may also have been in the White House on March 17 last.

He’s also been involved in the Northern Ireland Peace and Reconciliation work so that’s how he knows the ‘Irish Political System’. Marty was a former member of the New Haven board of Aldermen and thus he understands that ‘all politics is local’.

The seminar costs €210 and for that you get attendance on Friday evening and Saturday morning (finishes at 1 pm.) and a copy of  the Democratic Party Warbook ‘Campaign Strategy and Tactics’.

Mystery texts were also received last week by candidates and councillors asking them if they wanted to

‘Maximise your vote in election. Top Obama Consultant and US Democratic Party Strategist running Seminar Saturday 18th April’.

and giving an Irish mobile number. Ringing the number one is encouraged to leave a message and Michael Hanna from Performance Enhancement returns all calls from his Antrim office.  (I called and left a message and received a message to my voicemail but have not had contact since.)

I have not been able to find any record of Michael Hanna’s involvement in political strategy training before. There is no endorsement or co-operation advertised from any political party or academic institution.  Proceeds go to Concern Tanzania – now it does not say how much goes to Concern and how much to Marty and Performance Enhancement. PE seems to have experience in project management, lean manufacturing and collaborative networking whatever that may be. PE also have a Monaghan address according to the leaflet sent to councillors but there is no record of the company being currently registered with the Companies Registration Office.

So there we are, more rubbish about Obama being hawked around to Irish Politicians – at the lowest rank in the ladder of Irish politics who don’t need to know about phone banking or cushioning, positioning and closing. They are looking for Number Ones!

Their election depends on the actions of their party leader if they have one, whether they fixed a back door or got a medical card for someone, and if they have actually knocked on doors and made themselves known and got a bin waiver organised for Aunty Mary. How the political party you represent is viewed at moment of election is vital and if an independent the size of pot holes or imminent closure of hospital will of course direct the number of first preferences cast.

The election of a candidate in local elections is also influenced by the actions of the others on their ticket from the same party and if they get their vote in and if votes transfer down the ballot to candidates.  Getting your image with Party Leader into local paper (not Brian Cowen at moment) is important and making sure that press release on traffic lights being fixed is published is also of use – but funeral attendance may be more important still.  Membership of local soccer club/GAA/Church choir is of course an added bonus. And making sure there are cars and mini buses available on day to get the vote out is something which has happened in elections in Ireland for years. This includes runs to polling station for the secluded order of nuns in local convent.

So if you are a local councillor wishing to be re-elected I would think next Saturday morning would be more use canvassing at your local supermarket than attending this seminar on how the Democrats won the election. Only 51 days to go to election day – it’s a bit late (and probably completely irrelevant) to be going to this sort of thing!  You’ll also save yourself €210 to use for a whole load of leaflets and posters!

Now if you are a councillor attending this weekend and want to tell us about it and why you went please feel free to leave a comment!

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Maman Poulet’s inbox is a treasure trove some days. Tonight’s jewel is a leak of the new Fine Gael logo due to be launched at the Fine Gael Ard Fheis next week. Lots of leaflets were printed for local election candidates with the old logo but instead of a new leader as many would like it’s a new logo and new leaflets for the candidates.

This time it’s all caps for the logo and a starfish/eurostar star…or something!? I’m underwhelmed. A new website is also on it’s way though!

The old logo for reference in case you are not familiar.

If anyone has a digital file of the new image you can of course send it to me – details in contact section.

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An interesting event taking place in Dublin tomorrow night (Wednesday 25th – 6 p.m. in the Camden Court Hotel) – if you ever wanted to find out about the intricacies of how and why Obama did campaigning online you’ll have the chance at a seminar hosted by Strawberry Media. Registration details at the end.

Strawberry Media are pleased to organise an open seminar with Joe Rospars, founding partner of Blue State Digital and New Media Director of the Barack Obama Presidential Campaign.

Joe will be discussing the lessons of the Obama campaign, how it can be applied in other fields, and will take a Q&A on his talk. Attendance at the seminar is free.

This event is open to all, and would be particularly suited to bloggers and those interested in technology and politics. Numbers are limited, so please register your interest here if you are able to attend.

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You might realise that there is a culinary blogger trying to break out of this keyboard from time to time and many thanks to the team behind the wonderful CheapEats.ie for allowing me to write about some recommendations and wants in terms of restaurants and food in Dublin’s City Centre.

The website is a brilliant addition to the active irish food blogging familiy with the latest news on bargains in supermarkets, offers in restaurants and recipes for inexpensive ingredients.

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At the end of the US election some of us were wondering what the very well oiled and funded machine will do next. I found this news interesting in the midst of the train journey and inauguration/transition coverage currently underway.

Obama’s campaign moved to the next phase with the announcement today of Organizing for America – a new movement working within the Democratic Party where Obama will be encouraging all his supporters to transfer their energy to campaign for legislation and the Obama presidential agenda. First thing to note was the way he found out what the campaigners and supporters wanted to do.

This announcement follows a dialogue with Obama for America supporters across the country. More than 500,000 completed surveys following the election making clear their vision for the organization, and more than 4,200 hosted house parties in their communities. A clear majority believe that organizing in support of President-elect Obama’s agenda should be the most important goal for the organization.

(Update: Keith has more on the survey here)

He sent the announcement today to all his supporters including the Youtube below and will be sending more information in the next few days on the organisation itself.

So if Congress or the Senate aren’t too co-operative he’ll just call out the electoral troops or something? That’ll be interesting!

h/t  Huffington Post.

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Ah you can never have too many Rachel Maddow moments. Rachel along with others spotted Senator John Kerry’s little problem with his niceties towards Chelsea Clinton during her mother’s confirmation hearing yesterday.

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Only $13.56 (reduced!) from Atlasbooks

I don’t think there will be any photos of her stop over in Ireland though

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Some of the design and typography and political marketing types in these parts might be interested in the work of Sol Sender who designed the logo for the Obama Campaign.

15 or 16 different options were considered including (ugggh!)

We ended up with this of course which was used in so many ways and in the second video available on the site Sender talks about how designers then took the logo and adapted it for use by lots of different demographics and across a range of social media platforms.

A full interview with Sender can be viewed here

h/t Americablog

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