This is a map of how the voting went in the 2011 General election. As you can see Fine Gael recieved huge amounts of votes from all over the country, alot more then Labour did. Sinn Fein recieved little votes in many areas in this election. I think this shows that most people vote for the candidate, not the party in the presidental election. Gay Mitchel did quite badly even though Fine Gael did really well. Even hardcore Fine Gael voters must not have given Mitchel anything. I think Mitchel was the wrong choice of candidate for Fine Gael, perhaps if they had someone different they could have used the Fine Gael voters to do better.
Labour did quite well in the general election, but Michael D completely dominated the Presidental. Sinn Fein also performed relatively well in the General, but Martin McGuinness did even better. I think this does show that it dosent really make a huge differance what party the candidate comes from. If that is true, I think fianna Fail should have put forward a candidate. If they had someone charismatic they could have done really well! Obviously the performance of the independants the general would not be related to how Gallagher, Davis, Dana and Norris did. It is hard to tell how the candidates would have done differently if they were or werent attached to other political partys, but I do think that people are not bothered as much about the party.
