Election Diary: T -3: The Fullest Days

I got to bed at 3 last night, and was up just after 7. I thought blog readers might be interested in hearing about the schedule of the campaign as we hit the last few days.

TODAY's SCHEDULE
8am: Canvassing Luas stops in Belgard and Kilnamanagh/Kingswood.

9.30am: Breakfast.

10am: Letter writing, folding, trips to the post office for envelopes, more writing, more folding, trips to the postbox, and back for more stamps.

1pm: Two out postering, four in licking envelopes.

3pm: Another canvass in the sun down in Perrystown.

5pm: A quick dinner above the Laurels.

6.30pm: 18 people on a mass canvass of Limekiln and Temple Manor.

8.45pm: A quick drink in the Traders with the campaign team.

10pm: Back at home to do paperwork and prepare for tomorrow.

In between all of these were the usual phone calls, emails, mass texts, campaign management issues and dealing with the count. I also got to check our new ads in the Southside People and the Echo which we have paid big bucks for thanks to our fundraising work. Mercifully, I'm off work for the week but having the support of my campaign team today was crucial in getting the work done.

Tomorrow and Thursday will be similar in terms of intensity, with some fresh campaign work and ideas coming to the fore. Our numbers have really been excellent but we need to push them to greater heights in the days to come. Thousands of doors still to be knocked on, and thousands of leaflets to be dropped - we can start to relax in 69 hours time or so when the polls close, and truly relax on Saturday evening when the outcome is known. All of us are looking forward to a rest at this stage, but hopefully it'll only be short-lived as we look towards an historical Council seat.

Election Diary: T- 4: The Underdog Bites Back

It's going to be tougher and tougher to blog in the last few days of this campaign, but so many of you have told me you are readers - honestly - that I do feel a compunction.

Today was most certainly a day that would give you energy. It was, perhaps, one of our best days of the campaign so far. There were more than 20 activists around at various stages - we're hoping to build that even further in the last 3 days of Campaign '09.

We started off this afternoon with a canvass in the Square Shopping Centre. There was a reasonable crowd considering the gorgeous weather, and the feeling was most definitely towards Labour and our ideas amongst the shoppers and staff we met.

We shared, for a time, the middle of the second floor with Christian evangelists, one of whom shouted "Vote for Jesus!" I thought I was being very clever indeed to call out asking for a second preference for Looney, only to read this evening a Miriam Lord colour piece in the Times with pretty much the same line being used. Great minds and all that.

I was, again, asked for an autograph, which sounds a lot more glamorous than it is when it's generally the under-10 demographic who are interested.

After ice cream we headed to Belgard and Kilnamanagh for some leafleting and a chat with a few local residents. Pat Rabbitte TD joined up with us in Kilnamanagh and seems to revel in the electioneering. We took on fluids - definitely not the traditional Bank Holiday ones - before heading back to base.

Katriona had ably (wo)manned the computer while we had been on the trail, and, surrounded by paper, ink cartridges and envelopes, she proclaimed success on some of the paperwork - as necessary, if not more so, than the exercise in the Square earlier.

We hit the canvass trail again this evening in Dublin 12 with, again, some first-time campaigners; how wonderful it is to be welcoming new members to our campaign even at this late stage. We received what one of our canvassers called a "phenomenal reception." He may have been a little over-zealous but certainly our message is being positively received - except for one nun who was fiercely angry at being disturbed - and recognition is very high.

Perhaps it would be even higher but it is sad that so many of our posters - perhaps a third of the total - have been ripped down by, in many circumstances, rival campaigns. There are some who think they can bully a campaign which is much younger, fresher and not as well-moneyed but we have fought back in the only way we know - putting a real alternative to the voters, and keeping our eye on the ball. That they feel the need to behave in this way is perhaps indicative of the threat they feel from our supposed underdog campaign. We'll see when voters hit the polls in a little over 78 hours time.

Election Diary: T- 11: One Down, Thousands to Go

Yesterday's cliché about wearing out my shoes on the canvass is now available in pictorial form - just to prove it!

First things first - it has been pointed out to me that the numbering system on these election diaries is confusing, and I can see why. "T-11" would indicate eleven days left, but when writing after midnight (as I do most nights) I should really take off another day.

In other words, the polls open in a little over 10 days time - the "11" refers to the day just gone, for those not in the loop. And yes, I too am baffled. But it would be even more confusing to change it at this stage.

The Echo have put online the feature with candidate profiles they had in their print edition some weeks back. The wards are a bit mixed up but many of the candidates give an account of themselves.

We paid a quick visit to St Kevin's Well, a historical site in Kilnamanagh, at the end of this evening's canvass. Here's a small group of us outside at the end of a strong night's work, with Chris "Bond Lad" Bond in one of his customary poses.

And to round up the pics we also took a visit to the McHugh's site - you'll find more elsewhere on the blog - to check out the sadly-predicted vandalism which is increasing by the day.

The boost of the day - and one of the biggest personal thrills for me in the short campaign to date - came this evening in Kilnamanagh. I was engaged in a long and at times heated canvass with a resident as our campaign manager Paul Dillon knocked next door. Paul beckoned me in as I finished the canvass to speak to his neighbour.

The man I met told me, with great pride (both for me and him) that he had voted earlier this morning through the postal vote and had given me his number one. Knowing there is at least one number 1 beside Looney, Dermot (The Labour Party) in the system somewhere is, for some reason, both comforting and uplifting. We're looking for a couple thousand more to be elected, mind you.

PS - Belated Happy Birthday to one of our most sterling campaigners, Colm Lawless, who turned the ripe old age of 17 on Sunday. Colm has been an integral part of our campaign over the last year and mixes an extraordinary political mind for someone so young with a keen sense of politics as action. He can't vote himself - despite our efforts with the Votes@16 campaign - but is gaining so much for us with his work. Lá breithe shona duit a chara - le déanaí.

Election Diary: T- 13: Time Only for Politics

Tony Benn, who I don't mind admitting is a huge source of political inspiration to me, called one of his diary collections "More Time For Politics" which refers to a quote he made on retiring from the House of Commons. Benn himself remains a political dynamo at 84 years of age. I'm starting to believe, though, that there comes a time when there is no more time for politics - when you fill up your days and nights with its practice. And the last few days of a campaign, rightly so, mean time only for politics.

I did manage to get a game of football in this morning, a very rare thing in the last few months of this campaign, and escaped without doing too much damage to my dodgy ankle. I've been avoiding the physio since I hurt it in January in the hope that it'd get better; one of the first things I'll do post-election is get some treatment on it. The football took away some of the stress of the campaign and gave a good start to a day of canvassing in Tallaght.

Met some of the Fianna Fáil team at Kilnamanagh shopping centre at lunchtime; Charlie O'Connor was his usual ebullient self but the heads seemed down. We had two more new campaign team members out today, the numbers are really picking up for us but we need more for the final push in the coming few days. The weather wasn't the worst either, despite a downpour between 12.30 and 1; though I'm not sure we'll have a day when the umbrellas aren't needed anytime soon?

Today's canvass had to stop at 5 pm on the dot so as not to interrupt the rugby. We ended up listening to it on the radio at home because, scandalously, Sky maintain all the rights to the Heineken Cup in Ireland. While I was delighted to see (or hear) an Irish team do so well, it was hardly euphoric. Leinster rugby remains, sadly, class-based and I have never felt a part of the 'scene' despite having a genuine interest in the sport. However, the IRFU are doing some fine work in Tallaght and I hope the Leinster teams of the future might include some of the kids learning tag and tip rugby in our schools and at Tallaght Rugby Club right now.

And it was straight from there to a 'gig' at Templeogue United Football Club to honour 20 years of Dáil service by Pat Rabbitte TD. It also coupled as a celebration of Pat's 60th birthday which was last Monday- and for which he spent the evening on the canvass with us. The speeches from Eamon Gilmore TD, Mayor Marie Corr, local activists Gerry Kelly and Denis Mackin, Pat's wife Derry and Pat himself were full of humour and warmth and Pat himself was in flying form. It was nice to chat to others in the constituency about how their own campaigns are going and a real belief that we can pull off three seats in Tallaght Central.

To do that with three first-time candidates would be incredible but these are incredible times; the notion of a Labour Taoiseach and the party leading a government is coming up more and more, and people are realising that the movement to achieve that will need to be built and supported from the ground up.