Hard News: Mt Albert: Cooperating, competing and carpooling
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Here’s Jacinda Ardern’s robocall. The receiver comes down with quite a crunch at the end.
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:-) Thank you!
I loved being part of the Get Out The Vote push on Saturday. I was doorknocking in Sandringham, and there was so much support for Jacinda. So our big task was to get all those people out to vote. And they did.
Julie Anne Genter came along to Jacinda's party late in the evening, and was warmly welcomed.
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Tristan, in reply to
Jacinda has this rare quality in a politician. She always sounds sincere and genuine.
I know it drives the tories nuts that her sincerity doesn't seem to switch off when the cameras do
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EE,
Why did National not stand a candidate? Did they hope that this would split the Labour and Green parties? (FAIL) ... Or did they think Melissa Lee was just not a very good candidate?
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Why did National not stand a candidate?
They'd have lost, like they did last year in Roskill, and that would have been a symbolically awful start to election year for the new leader.
Probably also Melissa Lee would have said something terrible.
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nzlemming, in reply to
Probably also Melissa Lee would have said something terrible.
+1
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The way much of the news media sees it, on the other hand, is OMG JACINDA’S SO POPULAR SHE SHOULD REALLY BE DEPUTY LEADER AND MAYBE EVEN LEADER
An idea not helped by the schmucks at One News who had Ms Ardern captioned as "JACINDA ARDERN LABOUR LEADER" last night in the story.
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As someone living under the iron heels of Jonathan Coleman (ok I jest) I am pretty envious of the Mt. Albert by-election: a real contest rather than a coronation.
From what I can hear Ardern is clearly the candidate who did most of her homework, and sounded the most impressive, even though I doubt some of her ideas. (e.g. Having lived with light rail in Melbourne and Hong Kong, I can say first hand that light rail is sloooooooow, so I doubt people in Mt. Albert will like it very much in practice.)
Based on the actual result it kind of confirmed one of my suspicions about the red-green alliance: that Labour will cannibalise the Greens votes, while the Greens can't get enough greeny National voters to switch. All the stars are aligned right now for a greater push for the environmentalist vote, like water quality and so on, but it would be interesting to see if the Greens can pull it off.
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No noise complaints about the Pt Chev Bowls Club on Saturday night, I hope?
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Helga, in reply to
I think the latter. Melissa Lee making a showing anything like the one she made last time; straight after Parmjeet P's dreadful fist if Mt Roskill, was more than they could bear the prospect of.
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Would be nice if the Green/Labour coalition could agree on preferential counting in electorate seats. This would be a simple interim step for electoral reform until we get proportional representation in electoral seats. It would eliminate strategic voting and be a plus for NZ democracy.
https://kmccready.wordpress.com/2015/03/29/preferential-counting-in-nz-electorate-seats/ -
Reports from the ground indicate that the Green Party didn't really have much of a Get Out the Vote machine compared to Labour. Not suprising, but that
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Whoops, cut that off awkwardly.
What I meant to say is that having a solid GOTV operation is probably not something the Greens really need to have, being a Party/List vote organisation. I'm sure they could build one here and there (Wellington Central?) but that might distract/divert resources from what already works for them.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
What I meant to say is that having a solid GOTV operation is probably not something the Greens really need to have, being a Party/List vote organisation. I’m sure they could build one here and there (Wellington Central?) but that might distract/divert resources from what already works for them.
But they do have a consistent problem with not matching their polling. Some practice at getting their vote out might be helpful.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
They'd have lost, like they did last year in Roskill, and that would have been a symbolically awful start to election year for the new leader.
Sure - and it's no state secret that National has roughly the same ground force in Mount Albert that Labour does in North Shore. And coldly cynical as it may sound, National got what they wanted out of this -- becuase the by-election didn't turn into a referendum on the government.
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Ben Austin, in reply to
Indeed. I would imagine it is probably one of those topics that they've argued about endlessly. It does take a lot of organisation and people though and maybe they just know they don't have it.
I've long wondered why they haven't copied say the Lib Dem playbook from the UK - build up a solid council presence somewhere, then use that local network which is by now used to grassroots campaigning to try and take the seat. Obviously different countries / cultures and the NZ councils tend to be a lot smaller in councillor headcount which reduces scope, but it could work, if diligently applied.
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Certain political commentators' fevered predictions that National voters would rush to cast tactical votes for the Green candidate, thus handing Labour a humiliating defeat on home turf, didn't pan out – because normal people don't act that way, especially not on a balmy Saturday in February.
*polite cough* as a political commentator who didn't predict it, but said it was possible, I'd point out they did in Northland, when Labour didn't put up a candidate.
It does happen, although as Craig has alluded, Northland was a kind of referendum on the govt in a way Mt Albert wasn't.
I think too much has been made of the byelection result by, well, pretty much everyone.
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I wish the media (like Tracy Watkins in DomPost today) would stop bullying Jacinda about the Labour Party leadership. She's just won an electorate with all the responsibilities that requires. She might want to start a family. She's a senior Labour MP and she's still in her mid-30s. Surely that's enough for now.
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Sacha, in reply to
She might want to start a family.
Has been quoted explicitly saying that.
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KathrynB, in reply to
Labour did put up a candidate in the Northland by-election - as a political journalist you should know that.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Labour did put up a candidate in the Northland by-election
Allow me to be your, er, corroboree?:
BONNER, Adrian Paul IND 17
CARR, Joe FNZ 113
GRIEVE, Robin ACT 68
HERBERT, Maki ALCP 94
HOLLAND, Adam IND 16
OSBORNE, Mark NAT 11,648
PAINTING, Rob CLI 39
PETERS, Winston NZF 16,089
PORTER, Rueben Taipari MANA 60
PRIME, Willow-Jean LAB 1,380
ROGAN, Bruce IND 24
http://archive.electionresults.govt.nz/2015_northland_byelection/ -
Rob Hosking, in reply to
Gahh. Memory playing tricks.
Humbled.
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..though it should be noted Labour sent a pretty clear message to its supporters to back Winston. http://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/67099070/andrew-little-prods-northland-to-vote-for-winston-peters
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> OMG JACINDA’S SO POPULAR SHE SHOULD REALLY BE DEPUTY LEADER
> Because of course what Labour needs in election year is yet another leadership shakeup.And in the news this morning, Annette King has just resigned and Ardern the blessed successor.. cue the media frenzy
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izogi, in reply to
Annette King has just resigned and Ardern the blessed successor..
I'll be interested to see how far Labour takes this.
I guess there are arguments on both sides around this around the value of experience, but especially after the last election with such a low Party vote, it really seemed as if some great potential young candidates were locked out while people such as Annette King and Trevor Mallard stuck around.
Even with Mallard retiring from his electorate, I see he's still planning to stay on the Labour List. Unless he's content with a low ranking, what would he hope to accomplish there besides taking up space that someone else might make better use of? It sounds as if he really likes being the Speaker, but if Labour were to actually form a government, surely it could find any number of adequate people for that.
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