Sometimes real people tell the story of an election. In the 2008 US Presidential election 'Joe the Plumber' - the Ohio workingman - came to symbolise the frustration of US taxpayers.
In the UK general election in 2010 ‘Gillian the Pensioner’ stole the headlines. The 65-year-old gave Labour leader Gordon Brown a piece of her mind on the campaign trail when she asked about the influx of Eastern Europeans. Brown was then recorded referring to her as a "bigoted woman".
In Ireland in 2016, Labour’s backroom team developed a concept – 'Ashbourne Annie'. Replacing 'Breakfast Roll man', she was a (fictitious) stay-at-home mother-of-two who lost her job during the recession.
She lived in hope of a return to the good times and that rising property prices might take her home out of negative equity. Labour did not manage to get Ashbourne Annie’s vote in Election 2016, with the Labour TD in Annie’s Meath East constituency bombing and losing his seat.
Four years later and Leo Varadkar’s leadership of Fine Gael has created a narrative around "the people who get up early in the morning".
Last week RTÉ’s Prime Time reporter Louise Byrne went some way towards putting a face to the people that Mr Varadkar has been harping on about.
The ‘real people’ that partly tell the story of this election are Kellie Dempsey and her boyfriend Glenn Doyle.
The young couple lives in Navan because of affordable rents and get up early in the morning to travel to Dublin, where they say the wages are higher.
They would like to start a family one day, but if they were to have a child in Navan they wouldn’t see the child for 12 hours a day. If they move back to Dublin and have a child they wouldn’t be able to afford it.
The pair is now seriously considering emigrating.
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With less than eight days to go until polling, Fine Gael this morning practiced what its leader preached – they got up early in the morning.
At 5am Fine Gael’s Simon Coveney, Paschal Donohoe, Helen McEntee and MEP Mairead McGuinness were in Dublin Port for a photocall at the new purpose built Brexit facilities; on the day the UK departs the EU after 47 years.
The photocall for the politicians who get up really early in the morning prompted the Fianna Fáil leader Mícheál Martin to claim the Taoiseach timed the election to coincide with Brexit day. He claimed the Fine Gael leader thought his party would be re-elected on the wave of Brexit.
But if Kellie and Glenn - the young couple in Navan – fit the ‘Joe the Plumber’ role in this election, then the Social Democrats' manifesto launch this morning is more likely to have struck a chord with them.
That party is proposing the introduction of up to 12 months paid parental leave to be shared between new parents.
The first six months would continue to be composed of maternity leave with a further six months which can be shared by the parents.
Co-leader Róisín Shortall said Ireland was bottom of the league when it came to supporting new parents.
She stressed the importance of work-life balance.
"So many families feel that they are only living to work and their lifestyle provides very little opportunity for the things that really matter in their lives, particularly in relation to family time with their children," she said.
She said her party is absolutely committed to making parental leave available during a child’s first year to enable one or other parent to care for them at home.
The Social Democrats’ co-leader said the average parental leave across Europe - both paid and unpaid - was 100 weeks.
She said the party was prioritising the first year but that it wished to build on the proposals to bring them into line with European norms.
She said that most people use the current entitlement to parental leave to work a four day week to take the pressure off.
She pointed to Nordic countries where there are similar entitlements.She said this addresses issues such as absenteeism, work related stress, mental health difficulties and having family time.
Real people tell the story of an election.
The Social Democrats may have done more to talk to those real people today than their political competitors by laying out plans to introduce more flexible work options.
But will that really count when those real people go to the polls on Saturday week?
