Posts by Neil
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Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to simon g,
I agree there's often to much outrage.
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Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to simon g,
I take it you would discourage people from voting for the PM on that basis.
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I don’t think I can go along with the youthful indiscretion line.
She was an adult, a parent and was studying law. She deliberately set out to circumvent our electoral system to advantage a party she was standing for.
That’s not just some minor whoopsie by someone a bit disorganised.
We have this restriction so that party members can’t game the system and switching their votes to electorates where they might carry more weight.
Her one vote might be of little significance but if a large number people felt they could get away with it then that would undermine public confidence in the process.
And someone studying law with political ambitions really should be aware of that.
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It was Little's skepticism of the political wisdom of Turei's actions that contributed to his downfall. Ironic that he may be proved right.
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It would be darkly ironic if Little's skepticism of Turei - which partially precipitated his demise and Ardern's rise - turns out to be not so misplaced.
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I think the problem is we don't yet get to ask a youngish prospective male PM what happens if they take paternity leave.
It's an important contingency to take into account given the significance of leadership in the campaign and governance.
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Hard News: That escalated quickly ..., in reply to Russell Brown,
I tend to think of her as my sort of person, in that she went to Splore because she wanted to.
Do you know why she didn't object to the Chinese sounding names business?
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Hard News: That escalated quickly ..., in reply to llew40,
...overshadowed, or at least partially obscured, by the missteps (or at least the noise about the missteps) around immigration
They weren't exactly missteps though, rather a deliberate strategy to compete with Peters. Ardern has a great many qualities but she along with all the other Labour MPs sat silent - not taking career risks - when the Chinese-sounding names thing was being pushed.
Perhaps the change in leadership is an opportunity to recalibrate not just the relationship with the Maori Party.
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Corbyn and Sanders remain in opposition. Macron has a substantial majority.
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Hard News: Our own fake news, in reply to ,
I think they just wanted Clinton to lose and to hell with the consequences. The pretense of maintaining that had nothing to do with who is the current President is the weird part.
Regarding the 3rd party vote, it’s chilling how closely Jill Stein followed Nada with similar consequences.
From Nada’s wiki page:
…when asked why Nader would not agree to avoid swing states where his chances of getting votes were less, answered, “Because we want to punish the Democrats, we want to hurt them, wound them."
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His [Nada’s] candidacy was based on the self-serving argument that it would make no difference whether Gore or George W. Bush were elected.
Shockingly familiar. Punishing the Dems still seems to be the goal of many pundits regardless of what failings they actually may have and of the very obvious consequences.