Blogging on the iPad being away from home is very difficult so no matter how much I want to comment on what is happening to the Norris for President campaign I’m restricted really to twitter and mulling it over in my head. The spelling will be iffy.

Whomever I vote for in the Presidential election they have to deserve my vote, not because they are gay, or have worked with people with disabilites or will bring jobs to the country or initiate conversations. I wasn’t voting for Norris before this. I can’t join in the chorus of this whole thing being an anti gay smear campaign even if it was there and chipping away. This was an incident waiting to happen. I know many young gay people are devastated and it suits to point to the anti gay, anti Palestinian, anti liberal forces. And no, gay candidates don’t have higher bench marks to reach, presidential candidates do. Because this is about character. There was a hush in the LGBT ‘community’ about not dissenting even if there were skeletons.

Norris’s own campaign was poor despite the status he had in the polls. There was a feeling that he deserved it and that Ireland should be able to be grown up and vote for a gay man in the Aras and sure isn’t he funny and eccentric, a great story teller.

When the Magill stuff came out he ran for the hills and hid from the media, when he did appear on the media there were disasters and something felt missing. His local authority campaign was poor with councillors reporting an arrogance and a failure to connect and even properly ask for support. The guilt trip in Leinster House began, ‘deserves to run’ being the phrase du jour, week, month.

Without a party machine and even expertise in running a national election Norris faced a huge disadvantage. Not telling your team the full story and preparing for the problems is fatal. The letter he wrote in defence of Ezra is very David, full of mentions of himself and his thoughts and opinions in a manner where he thought they were of consequence. Some feel that the letter might point to flaws and fears about what he might do if elected – this isn’t important. It’s about whether someone really deserves to be there and what he thinks of himself.

I still feel terribly sorry for David after all this. Because he’s human, hurting and stood up so many times and spoke out. But there now are too many reasons to withdraw and questions about him now and secrets too.