Daniel McConnell

Like, O'Brien cannot be discounted as a leader, notwithstanding his failure.

No, no, I don't think so, yeah.

And I think there's probably a cohort of people in Fianna Fáil who might say, yes, Jim, but maybe not.

You know what I mean?

Like, he may be two feet or two kind of high and mighty in terms of his...

Yeah.

His legals and his Dublin Four-esque type persona.

You know, these things often can come down to just a general perception of someone.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Can come down to, I mean, go back to when Leo Varadkar became leader.

I mean, he won the parliamentary party, but he got absolutely trounced when it came to the local membership.

They said, well, Simon Coveney's our man.

that overshadowed the entirety of Leo Varadkar's tenure as Taoiseach, you know, given his, because he was never loved by rural Ireland and the votes on 2020, you know, kind of showed that, you know.

Totally.

Varadkar was hopeless, by his own admission, he was hopeless at the Press in the Flesh thing.

O'Brien is a very personable character.

Yeah, yeah.

He's good at Press in the Flesh, you know, he's, you know, he's a bit of a, I would say,

he's good with people, he's good in rooms, he can press the flesh, and I think that appeal can cross whatever rural-urban divide that there may be.