How can Sinn Fein compete with its right wing children?

[Question R24U]

In the last local elections Sinn Fein got 138,000 Votes in the South. In the last general it got 143,000 - less than 50% more than the Greens.

The party could grow and if there is a 'NEW DEPARTURE', it could be the one to benefit from the collapse of capitalism, the discrediting of ff and the realisation that fg is only less corrupt due to less opportunity.

How does the Party stand?
Pros:
- people know where they stand
- it is a party which is rooted in the community.
- it has discipline which is second to none
- the association with killing kids and use of proxy bombs diminishes with time.
- they were on the right side of Lisbon.
- they have the patience for a long term electoral strategy.

Cons:
- they still have a marxist overtones in their economic policies.
- they have no leader in the South -MLM is just not liked.
- adams has no political understanding of the south.
- their Lisbon objections sound like the same stuff since 1972
- their funding from the US is cut off. As is MLM's.
- their just not as relevant in peacetime and they don't get the soft press they had once.
-that whole 30 plusYears of pointless killing.

To compete with its right-wing basterd children, the party would require a major departure in irish politics to occur such as occurred after the 1929 crash. That and the floating voters.
In '77 ff got the floating vote, 82 say garret benefit, PDs got the bounce in 87, labour in 92. FF in 97 and 02.

So could Sinn Fein's time have come again?

[edited to correct numeric statement in first line. I got the figure of 350,000
Votes from this site and i presume it is a National vote for the party in the euro elections and would therefore be misleading if the focus is just on the 26 counties]

[Fianna Fáiler]

In the last local elections SF got 138,000 votes not 350,000, half that of Labour who got 277,000 votes and almost 470,000 votes behind FG, so what are you on about?

[bogtrotter]

In the last local elections SF got 138,000 votes not 350,000, half that of Labour who got 277,000 votes and almost 470,000 votes behind FG, so what are you on about?

He is referring to the vote that SF got in Ireland, unless of course you do not recognise Ireland as a political entity.....

[Fianna Fáiler]

He is referring to the vote that SF got in Ireland, unless of course you do not recognise Ireland as a political entity.....

I'm Confused! ???? Is he referring to the vote SF got in European Elections on the whole of the island, not just the Republic?

[Astroglide]

He is referring to the vote that SF got in Ireland, unless of course you do not recognise Ireland as a political entity.....

He probably doesn't-he's a Fianna Failer.

[Fianna Fáiler]

It's fixed now you's can calm down.