Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to Carol Stewart,
Hey, there’s the entire ACT party list.
They're more "get off my lawn or I'll released the suicide-bomber hounds" crazy. Even ACT at its worse has a way to go to catch up with the current Tea Bagged GOP where the utterly insane is mainstream.
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to Russell Brown,
I’m more inclined to go with Danyl’s observation that polls show people like Labour policies and the general philosophy they embody –
And, oddly enough, I don't know many people who think John Key sneaks out on a Friday night to kick orphans and eat cute kitten sashimi on the downlow. While the media-political complex is heavily invested in some Manichean cage match, I suspect the wisdom of crowds is more likely to view National and Labour as one party slightly right of center and another slightly to the left. (A whole other kete of kai moana is where that mystical balance point actually is. If it's Peter Dunne, Gods help us all.) There's a tiresome shortage of batshit crazy or out and out evil in New Zealand politics -- which makes life dull but every time Michelle ("vaccines make you retarded - but what's my excuse?") Bachmann opens her mouth I'm glad to be bored.
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to Russell Brown,
But the conduct of the Actual Prime Minister was of considerably more concern to me on Friday, and you didn’t indicate what, if anything, you thought about that.
Honestly, underwhelmed but surprisingly outrage deficient. But I really wasn’t in the mood for the entirely predictable round of “well, you would say that you Tory tool”, to which I’d fail to learn from experience and totally lose my shit.
If I was Key’s spin thing I’d have passed on that Radio Live thing if there were legal issues around well… talking about actual politics. (I’d also have advised Labour about complaining about it, but what do I know?)
Then again, I’d suck as a political spin doctor because seeing Bronagh Key and Mary Goff peering out of the cover of some ghastly women’s mag – to remind us that their husbands are uxorious heterosexuals – makes my flesh crawl.
But again, it’s all very nice for the commentariat to sniff at “the politics of absence” but I’m so far over political journalists acting as if it has nothing to do with them or their employers. As I’ve said elsewhere, The Tailor of Gloucester is a charming bedtime story but it’s not how newspapers, television news and radio bulletins are put together. Why the hell should Goff and Key talk policy, as opposed to doing fluffy photo ops with their wives, when the media have (to coin a cliche) taken the phone off the hook?
National can only get away with meaningless fluff or policies like privatising state assets in the absence of a functional opposition or media –
Well, Sacha, I obviously agree with you up to a point. Then again, I've often said Helen Clark wasn't totally unjustified in having her issues with the media. But she did a lot of work, and surrounded herself with smart people who got the basics right -- send clear, consistent messages. Whether you agreed with Labour's tax policy in '99 or not (and the media coverage was far adulatory), you couldn't say it wasn't being put out there loud and clear. Pretty hard for National to make the secret agenda meme stick when the top rate hike was anything but.
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to andin,
this politics business is very convoluted isnt it.
Or even simpler: Make sure you caucus and candidates don't behave like dicks in public. Whatever else you think about Helen Clark, in a politically geeky kind of way you've got to admire the sheer discipline she imposed on a party that not so long before was soiling its linen in public. Yes, it might be incestuous Beltway circle jerking but I think it did tonally make a difference in 1999. Compare and contrast the Conservatives in the UK who spent the best part of fifteen years being Tony Blair's best electoral asset - infighting, obsessing with non-issues nobody really cared about, and expecting one more lurch to the hard right would do the trick...
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to Russell Brown,
Jolly good. I think I could be forgiven for not divining that from anything you’ve written here.
I’m sure this will be dismissed (and has been) as concern trolling, but I’m hard on Labour because as a citizen rather than a partisan, I actually need an opposition that has its shit together. Because ACT and Labour did do a public service by mitigating the Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill from “screeching, cattle-mutilating mutant” to merely “very very bad solution to a non-existent problem.” This, not so much.
And being a sentimental old whoopsie, I know plenty of dedicated and decent Labour people who deserve a damn sight better than they’re getting from their alleged leadership.
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to Peter Martin,
But if it’s all about communication, well I live in Dunedin South and I have yet to see Curran or indeed any pamphlet or any sort of communication from Labour. Nothing for years.
To be fair, Peter, I rather doubt National’s going to be pouring resources into North Shore – which they’ve comfortably held since 1947. As far as I can tell, the only National constituency MP elected from Dunedin was one-term wonder Richard Walls in 1975 and even with pretty substantial swings against them both Curran and Pete Hodgson held their seats with the kind of majorities most MPs would kill for.
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to Russell Brown,
I’m assuming that’s not a criticism of the Prime Minister.
You've assumed wrong, cherub. First campaign season in 21 years my sensible walking shoes are staying in the closet.
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to BenWilson,
Seriously, how can the senior politicians avail themselves of public debate, if they can never actually have a discussion that doesn’t end up becoming a caricature, with a hero and a villain?
Here’s a radical idea, Ben. If politicians want to have grown-up discussions, they should try acting like grown-ups.
Grown-ups don’t behave like people who think – or vote – differently from them are, at best, stupid or just downright evil.
Grown-ups can accept that differences of opinion can be held in good faith.
Grown-ups can unconditionally own their shit when they screw up – as they inevitably will. Russell can hand-wave all he likes about one line, but anyone who has been around union/political circles in Oz (like Curran) should know that if you walk into a union or ALP meeting and accuse anyone of “white-anting” you better have the numbers to back your throwdown. Own it.
Grown-ups also accept the unpleasant and painful truth that, more often than not, their troubles are entirely of their own creation.
How do you feel about “my” Government or “my” Minister?
Well, it is my Government and my Ministers. And yours. And every other citizens'. Otherwise, no, I don't find the Prime Ministerial first-person possessive endearing.
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to Russell Brown,
For all that they’re pilloried in the fashionable blogs, Labour do know how to get their vote out on the day.
M'kay... and there's the problem. Sorry, Russell, but my gag reflex starts twitching whenever I hear a political party or candidate talking about "their" vote. You not only have to earn votes but not be stupid enough to take those boots on the ground for granted because they don't have to be there.
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to Russell Brown,
WTF?
Very well connected incumbents in panic mode. Not exactly a novelty, and not exactly restricted to the Labour Party to be fair...
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