Hard News: Campaigns
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The outstanding features of the Roy Morgan poll:
1) Greens at 9% and climbing. at a quarter and climbing towards a third of the left vote. Labour relatively static however.
2) NZ First, before the FTA fracas, are now at 4%. If they were pluck another 2% from National then on these figures (I am assuming the Maori Party sweeps all seven seats and there is a three seat overhang and the usual suspects win their seats) the Nat-ACT-UF bloc would only have a one seat edge over the Lab-Green-Prog bloc (56-55) and the Maori Party and NZ First would have seven each. Which makes for very interesting times.
3) It will only take another 2-2.5% swing to the Lab-Green-Prog bloc and that would see them forming the next government. Given how the right and media STILL portray this as National having a "commanding" 13% lead over Labour thats really interesting, and given the expectation that is raising out there in the mortgage belt of a National win one can only wonder how they and the right and its cheerleaders on the Herald editorial staff in general would react to National having a 11% election night lead over Labour translated into another three years in opposition to a Lab-Green-Prog minority government propped up on supply and confidence by an abstaining Maori Party. And God spare us the reaction of the the Kiwiblog right to a lesbo-anarcho-pinko-brown evil alliance governing the land!!
Its time media stopped being lazy and started to prepare the public for MMP election outcomes.
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That was a seriously misleading story in the Herald yesterday, made more so by its front-page prominence.
I took "confidential strategy notes" to be distributed official party instructions. In other words: somebody in HQ had the idea, it was discussed, it was written up, printed and handed out.
If that had been the case, it would have been evidence of very poor collective judgement, because in the hours/days involved in that process, there would have been ample time for the antennae to start twitching, and if they had still gone ahead regardless, evidence of stupidity and arrogance.
The updated version is a very different matter. "Notes taken by a participant" implies no forethought at all. Dumb but hardly damning.
Shoddy work by the Herald, again.
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"Mike Williams -- the fool -- uttered words to the effect that it was a damned good idea."
Mike Williams a fool?
Not in my book, working desperately hard in an impossible situation, not of his creation and being marginailsed for his failing to do so, is not proof of him being a 'fool' by any means. It is a sign of the how Clark works, the impossible constraints placed on Parties and the blame game she has now extended to the Party as Labour implodes.
What of NZFirst?
Are they moving away from "we'll negotiate with the winners" = No Policy.
To now requiring a Policy delcaration from National prior to the election? -
I think it's more that she's seen as a hypocrite and a political brute who's damaging her own party.
Seen as such by Obama supporters who go in for character assignation more often than for debating issues such as health reform.
He's just getting some of his own medicine and it’s very disingenuous for his supporters to start playing the martyr now. His own medicine – which includes using Republican talking points to attack her (better) health reforms.
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Mike Williams -- the fool -- uttered words to the effect that it was a damned good idea.
I'm still a little unsure about why this is such a big deal? I think Young's piece was pretty overstated, and have said so over at the original thread - I'm, however, quite surprised that it's elicited today's Prime Ministerial denouncement - perhaps I'm simply too far removed to gauge the significance of this (though I thought Craig's points about the role of electorate offices and departmental literature was well made yesterday).
The point, from my perspective, is that Labour should be campaigning on its record and should clearly and regularly point out that, despite the the constant repositioning of late, National opposed WFF, Kiwibank, Kiwisaver et al.
Even if Williams did err in thinking it was a good idea to use the publicly available material, how has this developed into such a huge story? Couldn't the story equally be: Labour to campaign on policies and achievements, National to campaign on John Key's dental work?
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Paul W - it's a story because the media say so. Last night on TV3 Duncan Garner said that National were - in his own words - "quite rightly" attacking Labour on this. If that's professional journalism, I'm a kakapo.
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<threadjack>Was anyone else who has worked in Australia scratching their heads about this?
Putting aside the dubious link between the "new" right to spy on employee's email and security against hacking, I do have to wonder if this right is nothing more than formalization of the existing situation anyway. I knew at least 7 people personally who were summarily dismissed in my last Australian workplace on the sole evidence of such spying, and no legal counsel I've ever heard of said they had any comeback.
Both those practicalities aside, I find it a very creepy move to feel the need to formalize it. They say it's not about reading people's personal communications, but all 7 of the ones I remember were exactly that - people getting fired for openly discussing stuff they were doing that the company disapproved of that had nothing whatsoever to do with work.
As for the justification that it's about protecting the company from attacks, that is just laughable. What employee wants to have spyware or spambots or viruses running on their workstation, why would they refuse the tech staff to look for it, and why can't the problem be solved at the gateway anyway? Employees who really want to maliciously damage the systems hardly need to use email to do it.
Who would have thought in early 2001 that some terrorist nutbars would be enabling your government to allow your boss to fire you for talking about taking ecstasy on the weekend? Yet here we are.
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I'm still a little unsure about why this is such a big deal?
Because it was the Herald's lead story yesterday and it feeds into their crusade against the EFA - it provides a handy stick to beat Labour with. I don't bother with TV news, but it appears they fell for it too.
Audrey Young's disclosure that it was notes from a workshop, not notes distributed at a workshop totally changes the nature of her story. The Herald should have printed a clarification as prominently as they published the original story, but, of course, it doesn't suit them to do that.
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Like the Poneke article and Russell's response. As I have said before it seems the information given out varied. Here in Wellington we had a very open dialog during a public meeting with a MOH representative. Possibly due to the fact that we were done later in the campaign and some of the issues faced by people like Russell had been aired. Some anti-vac folks did try and dominate our meeting which got pretty annoying after a while.
What I didn't see was a deliberate attempt to mislead folks.
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As a later poster has noted on The Standard thread, the margin of error is (in absolute terms) smaller for the smaller parties. I could see an argument for doubling the sample size (to approx 1800), which would give a Margin of Error of 1% at the 5% threshold, which would seem like a useful level of accuracy.
Roy Morgan, to their credit, actually have a table at the bottom of their report listing the margin of error for different percentages.
The wild fluctuations is more likely to be an issue with the sampling quality, which is a more difficult issue.
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Although Russell is desperate to give Audrey Young the benefit of the doubt, the pattern is clear. She is prepared to be economical with the truth when it suits her on this issue. Clark's "brutal" shutting down of the issue shows that Labour has identified this campaign by the Herald as very damaging.
It's also pretty clear that the Herald has decided to make sure that just the act of campaigning by Labour is linked in the public mind with some sort of vague illegality. It's an elegant approach - they can report the "news" with a straight face in the election campaign, indignantly pointing to their balanced coverage when accused of bias, having in the previous twelve months used their hysterical campaign against the EFA to taint all the water the well the campaign news from Labour comes from. As for Duncan Garner - as someone said yesterday, National gets a free ride in the media on election spending.
What Labour can do about I've got no idea.
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__Mike Williams -- the fool -- uttered words to the effect that it was a damned good idea.__
Mike Williams a fool?
In this case, yes. The whole point of the briefing was to talk about how to adhere to Labour's own laws on campaigning. The suggestion he endorsed may or may not have breached the law, but in spirit it was exactly the kind of thing Labour should be avoiding.
I've never met the man, but I gather he's bright, upbeat and energetic. He really just needs to think about what he says sometimes.
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I've never met the man, but I gather he's bright, upbeat and energetic. He really just needs to think about what he says sometimes.
Perhaps so, but it still appears as if his part in this situation has been exagerated somewhat. And wouldn't it be nice if the print-media started to examine policy issues to compliment their obsession with phantom scandals?
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Perhaps so, but it still appears as if his part in this situation has been exagerated somewhat.
Back to your original question, Paul. It's not a big deal, except for the fact that the Herald wants it to be a big deal. Williams made a comment that was dumb in retrospect in a semi-private workshop. Young took that comment, misleadingly stated its source and context, and made it into more than it was.
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Salon has a lengthy article by Rebecca Traister about how the cultish "Obama boys" don't like Hillary Clinton because, well, they're sexist. There's no doubt there is creeping misogyny threaded through the political sphere.
It's not just creeping - it's blatant. Feministing has an on-going Hillary sexism watch - some of the things on it are appallingly misogynist.
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I went stone cold on Clinton after she clearly and obviously lied about arriving in the Balkans under fire. A CBS reporter who was there located the relevant footage and all was laid bare. During the same week (in my hazy mind), Obama made his frank and straight-forward "race" speech and he came across as MUCH more genuine. Hillary has blown her gender premium to bits in my view. Plus she voted for every piece of legislation enabling the invasion of Iraq and all funding since. She lcaims she was fooled by that nasty Mr. bush who, she now admits, "mislead Congress".
Well......HELLO!
Clearly either incompetent or lying..or both. Not good enough to be President.
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Call me suspicious, but would the PM have 'waded' into the debate if the Party faithful hadn't been caught out publicly. I guess that's a little unfair, but my trust levels are at an all time low.
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A S,
I'm still a little unsure about why this is such a big deal?
Without wanting to sound like a cracked record, we have an almost miraculously low level of corruption in our public service and I for one, would like to see that continue.
Using the apparatus of government agencies to promote policies makes those departments look like they are no longer apolitical.
A public service that is seen as partisan undermines the neutrality that enables the public sector to endure through changes of government, different ideologies, and times of significant change, and to be able to provide advice that is neutral and independent for the elected government of the day.
A partisan public sector opens the door to favours, corruption and the world of the banana republic.
Hence why I think it is a big deal, and why I think the prime minister made the right call in kicking a pretty idiotic idea for touch.
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Tom Semens: One of the rare points of agreement betwen myself and Winston Peters was related to his throw-away remark to journalists about looking to foreign ownership of New Zealand's media. I've been around long enough to see the change from the Horton family to Sir Tony O'Reilly has wrought on the NZ herald in particular. The Fairfax media backed Howard in Australia and they back the Nats here. It would be nice to have some diversity of opinion along with all the "free speech".
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It's not just creeping - it's blatant. Feministing has an on-going Hillary sexism watch - some of the things on it are appallingly misogynist.
They're all pretty dreadful (Bill Maher is the only one I'm surprised by though) but a Republican congressman called Obama "that boy" this week.
I don't dislike Clinton because she's a woman -- how cool would it be for the USA to be led by a woman?! -- but because I'm starting to think she's evil.
And I think she lost a lot of moral high ground by throwing Al Gore under the bus this week for supposedly being a girlyman. Her subsequent posturing (a photo-op in a bar with a jigger of whisky!) and her sudden re-invention as a gun-rights advocate has been beyond belief.
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I saw that "boy" comment too, and I find it hard to believe that it wasn't a deliberate appeal to racism.
I just get tired of the "you must be racist if you support Clinton" and the "you must be sexist if you support Obama" memes running around in the US feminist blogs that I read. D'uh! There are plenty of good reasons to be for, or against, either of the remaining Democrat candidates, independent of race and gender.
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The Fairfax media backed Howard in Australia and they back the Nats here. It would be nice to have some diversity of opinion along with all the "free speech".
At least in the UK, when Murdoch backed new Labour there was this diversity of opinion - it wasn't all one way. Anothe price we pay for our small size I guess.
AS, I don't disagree when you put it like that. My point is that it was probably already in touch until the Herald managed to tip it back into the field of play, necessitating HC's cover defence.
(I'm finished with the sports metaphor. Apologies to all concerned)
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Re: Obama vs Clinton - I wish they would both start running against McCain instead of each other. At least that way we could start to pick out the differences between them and not bear witness to the democrats self destructing (again). A ticket with both of them on it would be unbeatable but I'd hate to have to clean up the mess after someone figures out who leads that ticket - there would be body parts I'm sure.
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Her subsequent posturing...
wot, Obama hasn't gone in for cheesy photo ops? Obama hasn't slightly redefined his position on particular issues depending on his audience?
good god, it's politics, they're both guilty of opportunism and other venal acts but "evil"? This is about half the democrat party you're talking about.
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EFA-wise, I hear John Boscawen's case against the attorney general goes to court May 15.
He seems to have a case - that the crown law advice was wrong and Cullen should have told Parliament the Bill conflicts with the bill of rights - hence presumably that the act should be thrown out.
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