Don’t call it a comeback… seriously, don’t. The deadline for nomination as a presidential candidate passes on Wednesday, so here are five facts on is-he-in-or-is-he-out candidate Senator David Norris.
The ‘David Norris 4 President’ website is actually a smear campaign
Unless you’ve been living under a comfortable, ant-free rock for the past year, you’ll be fully aware of the fact that Senator Norris’ presidential bid has been fraught with controversy.
This controversy stemmed primarily from the politician’s view on sex and an event in which he pleaded for clemency for an ex-lover that was convicted of the statutory rape of an underage boy – not that such a case should stop someone from re-entering the presidential race though, obviously…
However, a prime example of the naysayers saying nay (as they tend to do) over Norris’s eligiblity as president is best showcased in the fact that the URL www.davidnorris4president.com is actually an unofficial site set up by an organisation called ‘Campaign for Conscience’, who mention (amongst a flurry of smears that dot the site) that the openly gay Norris “has embraced a lifestyle which is blatantly out-of-line with traditional biblical morality”.
The site has been running since October 2010 and now even has its own Twitter page, which boasts a blockbusting 34 followers. So yes, that domain name purchase has largely been a gigantic waste of time for all concerned.
He wasn’t too fond of George W Bush’s US presidency
When asked by the Washington Ireland Program over the initiatives he might enact were he president of the US, rather than Ireland, Senator Norris revealed his anger at the US war in Iraq.
“I know what I’d do – I’d bring George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld before a war crimes trial,” he replied.
“The Iraq situation has to be cleaned out. What went on there were war crimes. They deliberately tore up the Geneva Conventions. They instituted torture, and they lied, and lied, and lied.”
Also, they lied. Strong words indeed, leaving us to wonder how Norris would react were he to greet a hawkish Republican president in 2013 while president of Ireland.
Things began in Africa
Norris announced on Twitter this morning that the latest County Council to back his bid to become a candidate was his “home county” of Laois, something, it seems, that nobody knew about. But he was actually born in Leopoldville in the Belgian Congo – now Kinshasa in the modern-day Congo.
Among Congolese, um, delicacies is Um Bongo, so he may well have tried out the tropical juice drink. As the song explains, “the python picked the passion fruit, the marmoset the mandarin and the parrot painted packets that the whole caboodle landed in”. So Um Bongo is clearly fruity. A bit like Senator Norris, perhaps.
That animal-heavy production cycle may also have inspired Norris’s association with the Royal Zoological Society of Ireland.
He enjoys ‘boxercise’
That’s right. In an interview with the GTI Gazette, Norris revealed that he likes to ‘boxercise’. So what exactly is ‘boxercise’?
All you need to know is that it’s an exercise class that utilises the core training concepts of boxing training but without the unwelcome prospect of getting punched in the face.
Effectively, it involves shadow-boxing, skipping, hitting pads and punchbags, but without an opponent at any stage. Having said that, opponent or no, it’s a reminder that Norris could secretly be pretty effective at throwing in a few digs.
More than 700 people will put Norris on their ballot paper regardless of whether he’s a candidate
Some 720 Facebook users have ‘liked’ a page entitled ‘I’m going to add David Norris name onto my ballot paper for President’. Norris has a big fanbase on the social networking site, with over 22,000 ‘likes’ for ‘Senator David Norris for President’ and over 10,000 who ‘like’ a page that’s simply named ‘David Norris’.
The latter, however, is only 1,000 ‘likes’ more popular than a page of a guy named David Norris who will name his son Chuck if his page gets over 500,000 views, so perhaps Facebook users aren’t quite as politics-savvy as we’d like to imagine.
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