A Complete Explanation Of Everything

You have to work on your opening lines.

You've got about five seconds to make your case otherwise this thing is going to drag on all day.

Yesterday, my local branch and some of the other nearby comrades, carried out an opinion poll for the Dublin North Constituency to gauge general support for the various parties / candidates with an election upcoming, probably within the next 10 or so months at least.

So, there ya go, easier than doing a straight paper sale, which for the uninitiated can be a bit like selling a Trotskyist version of The Watchtower or something. The revolutionary aspect of this work, particularly this sort of doorstepping, can sometimes be a little hard to pin down but there you are and you carry that little particle of the revolution in whatever way you can.

It was however, an interesting insight into the mind of the general electorate, from a purely academic point of view. Seeing as I was just listening (and only judging internally), the great difficulty the vast majority would seem to have is the ability to make connections.

Joined up thinking, not their apparent speciality.

"I want a change of government / I'm dissatisfied with this / that (public transport / infrastructure & planning)"

Fair enough, I think internally.

"Care to indicate your preferences Sir / Madam?"

Santa Maria! If he / she is not jotting down the incumbents, could it possibly be that a small lack of attention to detail might be at the root of the proper execution of democracy?

Obviously not, for example, the posters have already gone up... Clearly some election coffers were burning a hole in certain parties and that has an impact, the power of advertising.

The safe choice from my own statistically unrepresentative findings (30 estates, about 50 actual responses and only three wards) was the Green Party for Dublin North. For the liberal with the small "l", it sounds good, it's not too threatening and I don't have to think too much.

Anyway, I'll get the full results at the Branch meeting tomorrow and we'll see what we're facing into.