The results from the Ballybunion caucus…
The Americans here are obsessed about who we’re not paying attention to over there.
The Irish are obsessed with which of the candidates is a ninth cousin of someone over here.
And now here’s Tom McEnery (”a former mayor of San Jose … he spends part of each year in Ballybunion”) writing in the San Jose Mercury News about the bellweather town of Ballybunion.
When you want a real idea of who will be the next president, do not turn to the pundits and the talking heads of the chattering, bodiless, odoriferous order that pontificates for each and every network and cable channel - look to Ballybunion. Here in a place known for golf, seaweed baths and prognostications, you will find the truth. Here the denizens decry the hoopla of polls and likely voter profiles, and simply prefer the age-old method of trial by rhetoric, argument and ancestry - oh, yes, ancestry. Even now in Costello’s Public House, the verdict has been rendered, and it’s for the kinsman. As they say, “Surely, he’s Irish, near Killarney, ye know, and ye’ve only to look at Barack’s face and the way he speaks: Homeric!” This is a vetting and examination that each American president and aspiring president has to endure. The verdict is in…
The son of a Kenyan father and a Kansas mother is also the child of a long tradition that stretched from monks in stone huts to the Brookline of JFK. Those monks would sit in the dark and wait for inspiration. Hope would arrive and they would know it when they saw it. So does America. The mix of Kenya, Kansas and Killarney is a recipe for a new era of decency and inspiration that we have longed for but have seldom seen recently in American politics. In the town with the perfect record of endorsing every U.S. president, some even before the election, the results are in and they are going for one of their own.
Yikes. What where his mayoral speaehes like? Anyway, that bit of whimsy is employed to explain Obama’s appeal, but it does overlook the fact that if the anti-Christ came from a small village in Ireland we’d endorse his candidacy for Evil Overlord.
What’s a causus?
Comment by Ivor | January 30, 2008 at 12:25 pmIvor,
A caucus is a foot condition similar to a calluses or (bally)bunions.
Comment by Daddy Dec | January 30, 2008 at 12:40 pmIvor - It is a word to describe a vote which has no actual impact in the campaign but which takes place on a bar stool in a corner of a separate continent. I used in preference to the other equally-apt words Prinary, Eleption or Vole.
Comment by Shane | January 30, 2008 at 12:56 pmBetter than ‘erection’ I suppose.
Comment by Brock Landers | January 30, 2008 at 12:57 pmNow to be fair Shane, the Antichirst did do a lot of good work for his local constituents,,,,
Comment by Enda | January 30, 2008 at 1:28 pmBrock - that deserves an “Arf!”
Comment by Ivor | January 30, 2008 at 1:38 pmAnti-Christs have to be candidates for Evil Overlord, I thought it was an inherited position. What is the nomination process?
Comment by Dan Sullivan | January 30, 2008 at 2:33 pmDan - You and your smart-arsed theological arguments. I believe there are several candidates for anti-Christ - the Pope, the EU (as personified by Dick Roche), George W Bush, Louis Walsh… (the latter, of course, is from a small town in Ireland)
Comment by Shane | January 30, 2008 at 2:39 pmWas Elizabeth (the Virgin Mary’s sister or something) known as the Auntie Christ?
I’ll get my coat.
Comment by Brock Landers | January 30, 2008 at 2:44 pmI’m not at all sure that the smartness or otherwise of my rear is truly a matter of theological argument.
And Brock leave your coat, you can have a scoop on me for that one.
Comment by Dan Sullivan | January 30, 2008 at 4:19 pmAnd then there was this one. Hope it’s not linked to any of the links.
[quote]Donegal people urged to get US relatives to vote for McCain
Cronan Scanlon
Donegal people have been urged to get their relatives in America to rally behind a Republican Party nominee in the presidential primaries.
Stranorlar man Ivan Knox is a ninth cousin of US senator John McCain. Mr McCain’s ancestors came from the Drumboe area of Stranorlar.
According to Mr Knox, Mr McCain is a direct descendant of the “Drumboe McKanes” who emigrated to America in search of a better life in the early 1700s. Many of the American and Canadian McCains are very aware of their Finn Valley connections and have visited the area in recent years.
Mr Knox, whose mother was Sarah Jane McKane, published a book about the McKanes in 2000. He put the book together with the help of an American genetic researcher called Barra McCain, an eighth cousin of the senator.
Mr Knox told the Donegal News yesterday that he was always aware of the link with the veteran Republican senator and would like to see him at a future “clan reunion” in the Finn Valley.
“My mother’s people came from Drumboe and they owned a shop in Stranorlar. It was through Barra McCain that we finally established the US side of our link with Senator McCain. I researched the Irish side of the link,” Mr Knox explained.
“The McKanes originally came from Scotland, then they moved to Antrim and from there up to Derry, St Johnston and finally the Finn Valley and Castlederg areas. The link has already been established with Senator McCain and I’m proud to be his ninth cousin.”
He continued: “Wouldn’t it be something else if someone with relatives in the Finn Valley became president of the United States of America? Look what that would do for business and tourism in this part of Donegal. He [ Mr McCain] would be all for that and would be a big help for the illegal Irish immigrants in America. There are thousands of Irish stranded out there who cannot come home - they include some of my own people.”
Mr Knox said the more Irish people that voted for Mr McCain the better. It would be good for this country in the long run. “It would give the Irish a better chance of getting a green card so they can travel and work freely,” he added.
Comment by europhile | February 3, 2008 at 11:10 am© 2008 The Irish Times[/quote]