Opinion
Pat Leahy: If conservatives like Maria Steen want to have an impact, they need to do three things better
Read more on post.
It’s hard to escape the conclusion that Maria Steen should really be on the ballot paper for the presidential election.
In a very short period of time, her campaign garnered significant support from the public and their elected representatives, both in the Oireachtas and on local authorities. She is clearly a serious person, with a record of participation in major public debates. She didn’t run for attention, nor is she a crank or a gobshite. She would not have embarrassed herself or anyone else in the election campaign. She would not have flopped at the polls. She would have enhanced, not diminished, the debate over the next four weeks.
That does not mean that anyone who has profound political disagreements with her – and who does not want to see her as president – was under an obligation to support her. For this reason, the demonisation of Michael McDowell for not nominating her is misplaced: as is his right, he didn’t want her to be president. Just as the idea that Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the coalition of left-wing parties supporting Catherine Connolly had some sort of moral duty to give Steen their support to get into the race is slightly idiotic. That’s not really how elections work.
But there are enough Independents, who share some of Steen’s views or who think that those views should not disqualify her from the public square, to have gotten her over the line. She was only, after all, two votes short. TDs and Senators who have leant into socially conservative support in the past might have considered whether those voters wanted them to put Steen in the race. They might have asked themselves whether they believed the presidential race would be the better with Steen in it.
If they honestly believed that Steen should be kept out, then fair enough. But is that really the judgment they reached? I have my doubts.
Peadar Tóibín, the Aontú leader who promoted Steen’s candidacy, says that upwards of 200,000 voters are now disenfranchised by Steen’s exclusion. I don’t know about that, but I think Steen’s candidacy would have appealed to many of the people who voted against same-sex marriage and abortion liberalisation (also some of those who voted against the family and care referendums last year). Some of these voters see a narrowing of political choice and they see Steen’s exclusion as part of that.
There is a danger that we are moving towards a situation where anyone who holds socially conservative views is excluded from public life. I don’t think that would be healthy for our democracy. Consciously facilitating a broader range of perspectives – such as by nominating Steen – would also be a useful pushback against the Irish tendency towards rigorously enforced groupthink in many matters.
People who point out that conservatives didn’t complain when the groupthink was conservative might be right. But if it was wrong then, it’s wrong now.
All that said, if Steen and her allies had run a better-planned and more carefully executed campaign, she would probably be on the ballot paper now.
There are three lessons for politically-minded social conservatives from the events of recent weeks.
Firstly: organise earlier. Steen did not get into the race until August 29th, and although she had been consulting and preparing for some time before that, she should have been definitively in the field months earlier. Sure, the big parties didn’t decide until relatively late. But nobody left it as late as Steen. Too late.
[ Handbag at the Dáil for Maria Steen as her Áras run comes to an endOpens in new window ]
A pre-summer declaration would have given her sufficient time to meaningfully pursue the council route. Even if that was unsuccessful – and the big parties could have blocked her, as they did with Gareth Sheridan – it would have raised both her own profile and drawn attention to the shut-out, thus increasing pressure on Independent Oireachtas members. If she could come within two votes after just a few weeks, surely a three- or four-month campaign would have got across the threshold.
Secondly: persuade, don’t browbeat. I spoke to some of the people who might have – but didn’t – support Steen’s nomination. All felt under siege from some of Steen’s supporters (though there is no suggestion she was directing this personally) who were lobbying them with varying, and often completely absent, standards of politeness. The social media barrage was as vile you’d expect; but a lot of the calls and emails were also aggressive and intimidating, they told me.
Now look, you can say, c’mon lads: politics is a tough game, put on your big-boy pants. But the question the Steen supporters should be asking themselves is: did this help us? The answer is: it did not. It may, actually, have been decisive.
Thirdly: take on your own extremes. Being willing to confront your own side is not just an example of political courage, it is often something the public notices. The people raging on social media, haranguing and threatening their potential allies did not help Steen. If she had come out against these activities and demanded civility, it would not just have been the right thing to do, it might have helped her win the support she needed.
Often the noticeable thing about conservative voices in recent debates has been how angry they are – angry at their opponents, at the media, at the social trends in their country. I understand the sources of that anger. But it is not conducive to good decision-making and is therefore politically unproductive.
It may be an obvious thing to say, but if social conservatives want to have more political impact, they will need to get better at doing politics.
