REMEMBER, you read it here first: a key issue in the next general election will be an amalgam of immigration, refugees and racism.
None of the three has attracted that much attention in the last few weeks, in spite of a growing number of incidents and issues.
The lack of attention seems to me to result from two facts: the first obvious and inevitable (most newspapers are full of campaign coverage), the second less obvious and entirely lamentable (the wild overgrowth in the use of market research to guide political policies).
The second of these effectively means that if your focus group hasn't thrown up an issue as worthy of attention, it can and should be ignored. This, despite the fact that focus groups, of necessity, tend to respond to what they remember from recent newspapers, whereas political leadership and policymaking should be about a vision for the future and an appreciation, not just of today's problems, but of the problems five years down the line.
We're now in a time when political parties are not planning elections based around their passionate beliefs, but around their most recent research. One effect of this emphasis on attitude research is to create a pressure to compromise, to fudge, to move towards the middle.
This leadership by market research should worry us. It's a grim new gloss on the old joke that "You can see I'm their leader: I'm right behind them."
Where the larger parties use opinion research as a form of sandpaper to smooth down what is radical, maverick or challenging, they are contributing to their own long term erosion. We are seeing, in this campaign, seriously small parties and Independent candidates move from the status of warmup novelty acts and on to the main agenda.
If enough of them are elected, it will alter the very nature of Government and of democracy. The appeal they have is that they do not offer a softened general set of compromise policies. The Greens offer radicalism without compromise; indeed without much realistic discussion of consequences, since they never spell out the implications of their policies on the economic realities of the nation.
If we look at the national opinion polls over the past few weeks, we see a consistent 15 per cent or so of undecided voters - and they're genuinely undecided. However, what should not be missed is that there is a large number of women within that percentage. Women voters can really make a difference, although few of the parties have tried to attract them.
Now, if we add up the figures for Sinn Fein, the Greens and Others, they get 12 per cent. And if that holds on polling day, the end result might be a ragbag of diverse political interests. Certainly, the present three party Coalition cannot make it again, although, when they find they don't have the numbers, there will be a scramble as in 1992 to persuade extra individuals or small parties to join in government.
A ragbag government would not be a good thing for the country. Taking tough decisions becomes more difficult the more contrasting the mindsets of the decision makers. Sticking by tough decisions becomes even more difficult: the current Rainbow may have been able to make the tough decision to adhere to the agreed spending parameters, but they couldn't muster the resolution to actually adhere to it and so spending has greatly exceeded those parameters.
The boom in the economy means that this is going to be experienced as postponed, rather than immediate, pain, but the postponement of the pain should not encourage us to underestimate the object lesson provided; which is that three party ragbags can't stick to their decisions: multiparty ragbags have even less resolution under pressure. Where there is, lack of resolution and stability, progress is paralysed, and decision making gets broken off into working groups and committees.
The funniest thing in the campaigning over the last week has been John Bruton's justification of the invisibility imposed on him. When John Bruton became Taoiseach, his handlers decided to be innovative: to invent the first Soundless Taoiseach. A new variant, this, on the Invisible Man: John Bruton could be seen throughout the last year or so. He gives great photo opportunities.
In fact, when it comes to openness, transparency and accountability, that's your lot, as far as he's concerned: photo opportunities. But sound is another ball game. Submitting his leadership to probing journalistic questions would seem to rest of us a pretty good example of accountability in action, but his logic doesn't go that far.
This Soundless Taoiseach approach inevitably leads to the question: "What are they [the handlers] afraid he would do?"
This week has demonstrated, loud and clear, what they were afraid of.
JOHN BRUTON, out of the blue, demanded that Bertie Ahern debate him at a few hours' notice, and when it was gently pointed out to him that they were already booked to debate in full view of the nation on RTE next Wednesday night, accused Ahern of cowardice.
This is frankly irrational behaviour, even more noticeably irrational than his Beware the Bogyman warnings about the dire danger to the nation posed by the PDs. His pantomime "Look behind you" suggestions to the voters would be odd on their own, but taken in the context of his eager willingness to go to bed, politically speaking, with precisely the same personnel from the PDs just five years go, they're even odder. What on earth is he suggesting has come over Mary Harney and Michael McDowell in the intervening years that the rest of us haven't noticed? How have they changed?
The alternative to a ragbag government led by this strange man is a two party government led by a man who has grown immeasurably in dignity and decisiveness during this campaign. (Not to mention the fact that Ireland for the first time ever, has the opportunity to appoint a woman Tanaiste.)
Bertie Ahern has been speedy in his response to candidates getting out of line, clear in his thinking, unpanicked under pressure and above all, open and accessible to the people throughout the campaign. He has grown into his leadership and proved that he could grow into being Taoiseach.
When the count is over: Bertie Ahern as Taoiseach, Mary Harney as Tanaiste: Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats in power. That's my prediction. And hope.