SOME PEOPLE SINCERELY hate to say “I told you so”. I am not one of those people. 

Late last Sunday night, Jim Gavin dropped out of the presidential race amid criticism over unreturned rent to a former tenant who turned out to be Niall Donald, the deputy editor of the Sunday World. 

In truth, Gavin’s race was already run by that point. The former football manager was trailing both of his opponents in the polls significantly and looked well out of his depth in both of his debate appearances before dropping out. 

Now maybe it’s a little gauche to bring this up, but… I did say this. I said it quite a few times, actually. So many times that it would seem almost impossible that the same thoughts couldn’t have occurred to decision-makers within Fianna Fáil tasked with not picking a candidate who would totally blow up an election that we only get to have every seven years, and one of our very few opportunities for a conversation about what kind of country we want to be. 

“It’s an interesting message for any party to send its parliamentarians. Yes, you can spend decades as one of the party’s most electable politicians, but be ready to swallow your ambition if Ruby Walsh or Paul O’Connell fancy taking your spot someday” — that’s from 6 September, back when Fianna Fáil could still have selected Billy Kelleher, one of their most experienced politicians, to contest the election. 

“Jim Gavin’s answer on Gaza makes his Áras run look like a real gamble,” came a week later, after Gavin had immediately begun to struggle under press scrutiny, finding it hard to navigate the sheer breadth of topics about which he was suddenly expected to speak with fluency.

Last week? In the aftermath of Gavin’s poor debate showing: “It’s bad news for Micheál Martin, who led the charge to nominate Gavin within Fianna Fáil.” 

It might be a bit of a concern for Micheál Martin that a columnist whose primary concern is seeing if he can fit a Muppets reference into his weekly reflections is giving him better advice than his advisors, and for free no less. Next time you think I’m being overly critical of the government parties, just remember that I’m over here trying to help, okay? 

What followed Gavin’s dropout was a rather unseemly tug-of-war concerning the manner in which Fianna Fáil either failed to vet their candidate, or selected him anyway despite concerns over the money he owed his former tenant. There was wrangling in radio interviews, with the likes of Kelleher refusing to express confidence in Micheàl Martin, and Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan making it clear that he does eventually intend to supplant Martin as party leader. 

For now, it seems as though Martin’s leadership has survived this almighty blunder. Fianna Fáil spent Thursday evening talking about it as a family, and they’ve decided to give it another shot, presumably after Micheál Martin personally appeared beneath each of their bedroom windows, holding up a boombox playing In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel. 

While we’re all glad that the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party has had their opportunity for group therapy and collective catharsis, it’s hard not to feel like the entire 100-or-so-year history of the state has been therapy or catharsis for Fianna Fáil in some way or another. When do the rest of us get included in the group hug?

Fianna Fáil may feel as though they were denied a candidate, but this is not exactly the case. They denied themselves a candidate. Yes, Micheál Martin led the charge, but Gavin won the party’s nomination at a clip, 41 votes to 29. If Micheál Martin screwed Fianna Fáil here, then Fianna Fáil in turn screwed the voting public. 

While Fianna Fáil may well be aggrieved that their actions have had consequences, it’s the public at large who will have to suffer the consequences. So far, so Fianna Fáil. It is unprecedented, after all, for a presidential candidate to drop out of the race at this stage, with their name irremovable from the ballot. In many ways, the election has already been fundamentally undermined.

For the next two weeks, Heather Humphreys and Catherine Connolly will be subjected to the rigorous scrutiny that comes with running for president. They may not owe any money to any professional journalists, but it’s entirely plausible that twists and turns may emerge that cause their respective polling numbers to drop. That’s the way of elections.

If or when that moment comes, and either or both candidates are at a low ebb, what is to stop Jim Gavin from popping up with 48 hours to go — having skipped the debates and the press pack questions and whatever else — and saying: “Ah, d’you know what? I was only messing, go on and give me your number one there”?

And what happens if Gavin were to win? An unrealistic prospect, but not a nice ‘what if?’. There are other, more pressing hypotheticals. Will the FF faithful still vote for him in the hopes that some Fianna Fáiler will be installed in his place after the fact? Or will they vote for Heather Humphreys, handing an enormous political win to Fine Gael? Will those who wish to spoil their votes use a Gavin number one as a protest vote, and if so, how will we ever be able to tell?

Through their own negligence, Fianna Fáil have given us a presidential election with an asterisk — the last thing that any state needs at a time when democracy across the world is being undermined. Which is to say nothing of a Budget announcement that couldn’t possibly have had the Minister of Public Expenditure’s undivided attention, since Jack Chambers was double-jobbing as Gavin’s director of elections. 

All of this to say that, yes, there are more important things happening than Catherine Connolly’s prodigious keepy-uppy abilities. But only marginally more important.

Watching Catherine Connolly make utter fools of those children, one must wonder why it took so long for her Samba Soccer skills to come to the fore. Why didn’t she show up for that first TV debate spinning a basketball on her finger?

Perhaps it was all a matter of timing. The video of Connolly comfortably doing keepy-uppies came out within half an hour of Gavin announcing that he would be retiring from the race, creating a side-by-side wherein a legendary sporting coach’s political ambitions are undone while his 68-year-old opponent insouciantly does keepy-uppies in wedges and slacks. 

In a race that has become deeply unserious, it could be something like this that actually ends up swaying people. A small sliver of goodwill and whimsy that they can hold on to, as with Michael D Higgins and his dogs.

And in fairness, Catherine Connolly could spend her entire seven years in the office doing nothing but going from school to school doing keepy-uppies and it would probably have a better effect on social cohesion than almost anything else that the president can actually do.