Gavan Reilly: November is perfect for an air war - but only if people buy it

Blink and you’ll miss him. Simon Harris is barely landing in one place before he’s posted an Instagram reel of his visit, and he’s away to another. The U.S. has just had its first ‘podcast election’ – is Ireland having its first election to be mediated largely by Instagram reels?

I don’t ask that flippantly. Simon Harris’ decision to orient Fine Gael’s campaign entirely around his New Energy™ is obviously a deliberate thing, which is why he’s making this election about party brands rather than individual candidates. This makes sense: when you’ve so many new candidates, you make the campaign about their collective central brand rather than their individual identities.

For professional election watchers, this throws up a separate curious challenge: is there any significance to the order the Taoiseach is travelling in? Put it this way: in 2020 Leo Varadkar spent day one of the campaign in Cavan, with local candidate TP O’Reilly, clearly hinting that a second seat in Cavan-Monaghan was a priority (spoiler: they didn’t win it). It’s hard to divine the same strategy this time.

The decision to hold the election in November - despite it being not quite what Harris might have envisaged when he took over in April - is another facet in the same strategy. Elections in summer, with better weather and brighter evenings, suit the sort of campaigners who enjoy knocking on doors and pressing the flesh. It’s retail politics. It’s a ground war. Elections on the cusp of winter are not a ground war, the conditions don’t lend themselves to it. Winter elections are an air war.

For those not watching his campaign with the same zeal as the media: Harris isn’t spending long at any specific spot. This isn’t necessarily a criticism: he’s simply so keen to get everywhere, and to be seen to get everywhere. The whole campaign is about having energy: the energy is demonstrated by getting around as quickly as possible.

The consequence of this is that his engagement on the ground is fairly limited. It’s a strategic jive in a Monaghan music shop, or a walkabout in a shopping centre foodcourt with a relatively curated audience, or an amble around a Christmas market where he’s filmed walking about for ten or fifteen minutes, and that’s enough. (I’m not naive enough to wonder if these short stays are out of necessity rather than choice.)

I asked a Fine Gael press officer on Monday – day 4 of the campaign! – if they had a list of the constituencies Harris had visited by then. “It’s be easier,” came the reply, “to list the ones he hasn’t been to yet.” And that’s Day 4.

There might be a reckoning on this front in the weeks to come. If Harris keeps up this bltizkrieg model of campaigning, he’ll soon run out of places to visit – and will end up doubling back on himself by visiting places a second and third time. Will people accept this continued display of energy? Or might they begin to wonder if, behind the crazy schedule of photo opportunities, there’s any real engagement on the ground.

Gavan Reilly is Political Correspondent with Virgin Media News and Political Columnist with the Meath Chronicle. Column appears first in Tuesday's paper!