‘Smear the bejaysus out of her,’ former FG TD Ivan Yates’ advice to Catherine Connolly opponents

"You’re going to be shocked about this now… I would go bullheaded: ‘Do you want a provo in the park? Is she a Russian asset?’ I would smear the bejaysus out of her."

The political commentator made the comments on his Newstalk radio show, Calling It. This was after he was asked by his co-host Seán Defoe about the presidential election becoming a head-to-head race between Catherine Connolly and Heather Humphreys, following Jim Gavin's withdrawal.

In response, Yates said: "The difficulty has been, when it becomes a two-horse race, it’s not the personality; it’s the narrative, and the narrative that has prevailed is the government sort of sucks.

"The government won the local elections, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil and they won the general election.

"And you know what, if they get a bit of a black eye from this, it’s not the end of the world," he said before later adding: "Then you’ve other specific issues, how do you feel about international affairs?'

It was then that Yates offered the following advice to Connolly's political opponents:

"So, if you were asking me, okay? So Fine Gael ring me and say: 'How do we reverse this?' right?

"You’re going to be shocked about this now... I would go bullheaded: ‘Do you want a provo in the park? Is she a Russian asset?’

"I would smear the bejaysus out of her, simply because you’ve nothing to lose."

Explaining why he felt this might be necessary for Fine Gael politician and presidential candidate Heather Humphreys, he said: "The truth of it is, Heather... the ten years of being in government, you’re a great minister and you’ve a great CV, is actually an albatross around her neck.

"Because everything that you’re unhappy with in the legacy of government, housing... child poverty and so on is hung around her.

"And I just noticed in the media’s pursual of the second and third question on the same topic, they tend not to blame Catherine for anything, even her views. She’s got a bit of a Teflon thing, she hasn’t been in government.

"Whereas I find even today and yesterday that... when I see Heather getting caught up in the barbed wire that is transgenderism, I’m saying: ‘Right’. In other words... that is almost, whoever gets in answering that question is in trouble, right? Because it’s just divisive.

"Both candidates won’t get caught up in that."

Yates went on to praise Connolly's social media campaign, including the viral video of her doing keepy-uppies with a football.

He then added: "Put it like this, I spoke to a strategist that I respect and I think campaigning as usual for ‘Aunty Heather’ is not going to cut it, and... therefore you’ve got to create a fear that Ireland’s international reputation could be endangered by this person in the park.

"I’m not saying that’s true, but I’m just saying… that’s the narrative you’ve got to put out there.

"Now, look, campaigning is about risk, but in my experience, nothing works like negative campaigning."

Main Image via Rolling News