By Declan Harmon, University Times columnist
When Cathal Reilly was elected SU President in 2008, his election was supposed to usher in an era of Hamilton based candidates dominating the top office in the SU. Following Reilly’s success, Hamilton candidates were to do for the SU Presidency what Ed O’Riordan and ‘EdCorp’ did for the Ents office.
Things have not turned out for them quite as they might have planned.
In the 2009, 2010 and current SU elections, there have been presidential candidates who have all come up through a similar path in the SU, have similar support bases, similar strategies and largely identical campaign teams.
Cathal Horan was the first of these candidates, running in 2009. He was widely expected to win, having been seen as the ‘Heir Apparent’ ever since Reilly’s victory. He didn’t bank on the strength of the candidacy of Cónán Ó Brion, the dark horse in the race who eventually went on to win narrowly.
Next in line was Fearghal Hughes. Again, Fearghal came with impeccable SU credentials and had been strongly tipped for the top job for a number of years. He was beaten by the electoral (and Facebook) machine that was Nikolai Trigoub Rotnem.
That brings us to this year. Ryan Bartlett has very similar credentials to Hughes and Horan. Indeed, he was campaign manager for Hughes last year. Initially, Bartlett seemed to have the easiest election in prospect, with no serious challenger initially appearing.
However, the campaign of Aaron ‘Obama’ Heffernan has really taken off and is garnering a lot of attention. I still can’t quite figure out whether Heffernan is running purely as a joke or is subtly using humorous means in order to actually win. Either way, he is now a serious player in this race. By comparison, the sombre and serious tone of Bartlett’s campaign has struggled to capture the focus of voters.
While I am at pains to point out the unscientific methods and potential for manipulation in the University Times poll carried out earlier in the week, the fact that Heffernan is only two percent behind Bartlett must have the long assumed frontrunner worried.
Could it really be that the curse of Cathal Horan is about to strike again?
