Excuse the interlude, the diarist needed a holiday. Wexford was quiet enough on the Presidential campaign front though I noticed that David Norris did pass through on Tuesday on a flying visit.

Speaking of Senator Norris did you see his official campaign video launched with his campaign and website rebrand on Wednesday?

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The polls yesterday have people going ‘Didn’t expect Sean Gallagher’. I did say last Saturday that he’s a grower. Cough.  Have been talking/listening to enough (straight) women who have had their heads turned to think about voting for him. In addition to the non posters, Sean has been speaking at conferences and events throughout the country for years never mind the last 5 months. Haven’t seen smiles on Fianna Fáilers in a very long time. Throwing that sort of mud at him might get your own candidate into trouble given the Gay Mitchell experience so the Labour Party would be wise to keep schtum.

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Someone is doing wordles of candidate’s websites. I’m not sure why or if there is any good to come of it but here you are, this is Gallagher’s, it looks pretty anyway.

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Spotted in Summerhill, free the Michael D 1!

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Yesterday Philip Boucher Hayes interviewed Mary Davis about her role as a board member of the ICS building society.  That interruption you hear on the podcast at the end is former TD Mildred Fox who comes in to rescue her.

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Anyone know where Dana is?  She is complaining that she’s not getting coverage in the media but is she actually running a campaign or merely showing up on tv waving a copy of the constitution about?

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Finally a health warning for journalists waxing lyrical about social media in this election, we can’t see who the thousands of people who like the candidates on Facebook are as their names are generally hidden. This means that there is a possibility that not all the people who have liked a candidate can vote for them or indeed many people might like a candidate without knowing they have done so. In fact lists of fans can be bought.

This privacy feature which does not reveal the list of fans therefore could be used to manipulate a candidate’s reputation. It’s not just something that is known in international elections, some social media companies have been known to do this for commercial clients. It’s just a health warning at this stage, we do need to look at getting independent verification of the figures that are being used by candidates in their claims of popularity.