Fintan O'Toole for Mayor

Let me get this right out in the open - Fintan O'Toole is one of two men in the world that I might have a bit of a crush on. The other is rugby legend, Rocky Elsom but that is definitely a topic for a different blog! I agree with almost everything Fintan writes and whenever he is on Vincent Browne, Late Debate or Marian Finucane I find myself cheering him on as he fights the corner for social justice. As the liveblogs during these shows demonstrate, I am not alone in my Fintomania.

So about two weeks ago when Gormley announced his plans for elections to Mayor of Dublin in June, a brief flurry of tweets led to the creation of the Facebook group supporting Fintan for Mayor of Dublin. I posted a link to the Irish Times article announcing the race, Christine uploaded a few photos and we sent out a couple of invites to our nearest and dearest and left it at that.

Then yesterday evening, news came through that Fintan was going to be a participant in Late Debate discussing the Mayor of Dublin and his potential candidacy. I'm still waiting for the show's podcast to appear on the RTE website but apparently Fintan is interested in running if Bertie does just to scupper the disgraced, former Taoiseach's chances or if we can get 100,000 people to join the Facebook group. Now based on Bertie's statement last week it is unlikely that he will run for the position, so it is up to us, the grassroots supporters, to convince Fintan of the merits of his candidacy.

In reality, nobody expects Fintan to actually run, but it is fun to see a little bit of social networking hijinks ending up on the airwaves of the national broadcaster. So keep recruiting supporters. We're already at 28/1 on Paddy Power ahead of luminaries such as Bono, Shane Ross, George Hook and Dustin the Turkey. I'm putting a tenner on to help bankroll the victory party.


Update - 29 January
The podcast is now up on the RTE website.