Quote Originally Posted by Effin Effer!!! View Post
Cllr. Eddie Fitzpatrick. M.C.C. from the Portarlington area of the North Offaly (Edenderry) LEA, who began his political career as a member of the Progressive Democrats and held his seat in the last Local Elections as an Independent with a very impressive first preference vote has recently joined Fianna Fail.

Well he has some nerve! He spent the entire 2009 Local Election and the recent General Election pontificating about the virtues of being an Independent and cursing Fianna Fail to the high heavens and now he joins them. On a personal level Eddie is a nice guy, but politically he's nothing but a carpet bagger.

I can only assume that he is doing this to get on a party ticket for the next General's because of his poor performance this year, well more fool him. Fianna Fail only intended putting forward two candidates, Cowen and Flemming, but at the last minute Molloney changed his mind and wouldn't stand aside so they had to run him. They'll only run two next time, so no room for Eddie. Also, all of the IFA/Fine Gael people who voted for him in the Local's, over 50% of his vote by my reckoning, will finally wake up and realise what fools they've been taken for. He'll get it hard to hold his seat next time even with party transfers, Fianna Fail won't have a sitting Taoiseach in Offaly to buffer them from the peoples backlash.

On an aside, Cllr. Ger Plunkett must be spitting nails given the fairly hard work he'd put into building up a profile among Fianna Fail supporters in Portarlington, he barely got across the line for his seat and needs to seriously boost his first preference badly, while the old silver fox and the Cowen's right hand man in North Offaly Cllr. Noel Bourke has to be laughing his head off with newly Independent Cllr. John Foley declaring that he'll retire from politics at the next Local Election and no Fianna Fail Councillor or potential candidate anywhere near Edenderry, back to his old poll topping ways. If Fine Gael selects a good candidate in the south of the LEA we could stand a good chance of taking a third seat, for this reason and with no Mick Fox in the field. In my humble opinion.