Polity: Meet the middle
254 Responses
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
I'm happier when there's plenty of debate and no snark, but I'm not going to be too exercised by snark either way.
I was just a bit confused about the "subtweeting" bit. Surely one can snark on Twitter in response to a patronising article without having to tag the author, who happens to also be on Twitter (probably) but whom one doesn't follow. I mean surely!
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Chariot... for a chary lot
The pendulumpenproletariat
also swing low and high,
swingeingly in fact... -
Danielle, in reply to
I’m not going to be too exercised by snark either way
Snark exists on Twitter so some of us (ie, me) don't come and ragepost all over your nice polite threads, Russell. You should be grateful for it. ;)
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David Hood, in reply to
Yes, the swinging voter can jump off the swing
To further complicate it, I think it would be a mistake to treat non-voting as one destination. As measured by the data, a ACT supporting non-voter may be in a very different voting space to a Internet/Mana one.
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Just posted tis on another thread but so angry I will post it here too...
I suppose I am a bit late with this news but I am so pissed off that I had to post it somewhere.Dita De Boni @KeepingMum Aug 9
Hi all. In answer to questions, it is true the Herald has discontinued my column as of three weeks from now. Reason given = budgetThe rolling maul of National's road to our insignificance rolls on.
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chris, in reply to
And Mike Smith is certain NZ Labour’s supposedly sharp tack left won it the 1999 election, rather than, say, comically self-destructive opponents.
Except that Labour didn’t technically win that election, or any subsequent election for that matter. Labour haven’t won an election since 1984. In 1999, even with Alliance support, the collective was still two seats short of an absolute majority and was only able to form a new government with support from the Green Party.
In the 2011, Labour, The Greens, New Zealand First, the Maori Party, Mana and United Future combined had 61 seats, i.e a majority. It wasn’t a lack of votes from the general electorate that held back the centre left from holding office. It wasn’t a question of policy, it was quite simply a failure – as opposed to an incapacity – to successfully negotiate the formation of a Government.
Starting narrowly, anyone who looks at Labour’s successful 2005 platform and sees anything other than an appeal to the centre is dreaming.
etc..
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chris, in reply to
That's fucked.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
I suppose I am a bit late with this news but I am so pissed off that I had to post it somewhere.
Dita De Boni @KeepingMum Aug 9
Hi all. In answer to questions, it is true the Herald has discontinued my column as of three weeks from now. Reason given = budgetI wonder how much of that budget has been diverted to buy Mike Hosking another Ferrari?
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
I wonder how much of that budget has been diverted to buy Mike Hosking another Ferrari?
I said as much in my latest comment to her. It probably wont get in but her last piece is well worth reading. Dita De Boni, Her last Herald article
Another good writer pushed under the bus. -
chris, in reply to
Labour haven’t won an election since 1984
* As opposition, I should add, in case that’s fodder for rebuttal. So yeah, since 1987 – : The Cold War, Iran-Contra testimony , The Last Emporer, Wall Street, Got my mind set on you, King’s Cross fire, Black Monday. No majority. We can keep kidding ourselves that a tweak here and there will restore the glory days, but it no longer appears to be the way things work.
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Mr Mark, in reply to
"...in response to a patronising article..."
Yep.
For example: "Rule 1 in politics is "learn to count" 33 < 50".
Or his apparent assumption that none of us have ever heard of Anthony Downs' seminal thesis (most of his critics of the last week or so do, in fact, hold Pol Sci degrees)
Convenient, too, how New Labour's win in the 1997 UK General Election apparently had everything to do with Blair's Right turn and nothing whatsoever to do with his comically self-destructive opponents (Black Wednesday, a series of major Tory corruption and sex scandals, endemic Tory disunity over the EU...), but the NZ Labour / Alliance victory in 99 apparently had nothing to do with the political alternative being offered and instead was entirely down to Shipley Government ineptitude. Funny how that happens.
I'll be posting a considered (largely, but not necessarily entirely , snark-free) response on my sub-zero politics blog (although, given severe time-constraints, it might not be for a week or so - by which time everyone will have lost interest). But I'd really like to get to the heart of things and move the debate along a bit.
In the meantime, here's Stephanie Rodgers' quick reply... https://bootstheory.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/a-quick-response-to-rob-salmond/
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BenWilson, in reply to
I’m happier when there’s plenty of debate and no snark
On this topic that's a big ask. I'm amazed it's as civil as it has been. We are, after all, talking about the most hotly contested political competition in the country, and how it should best be won. To maintain an aloof abstraction about it is only possible if you:
1. Don't actually care, or
2. Are naturally aloof, or
3. Are carefully maintaining aloofness for whatever reason.I'm 3 myself. The reason is, because it's a debate worth having, because it's constantly being had elsewhere, with a lot of heat and little light. Maybe we can do better. It needn't be a repeat of the same debate on countless other sites, with all the usual suspects dominating. Perhaps at least some new information and analysis might make this a go-to thread on the topic.
Also, my own interest is driven by not having a strong opinion. Which is to say I have considerable doubt about both sides, about both major strategies. My doubt mostly comes from a feeling that the basic terms of the discussion are not nailed down. "Left", "Center" and "Right" are poorly defined, and that means that avoiding cross-purpose discussion is virtually impossible. If we make any progress on at least that, then we've made progress generally.
I'm not optimistic, but I'm at least trying. It's an extremely complex question. Perhaps precision is impossible. If so, I think that a data driven discussion is also impossible, and the whole thing comes down to shouting. So I'm just working on the assumption that this is not the case, because it's the only hopeful position, since I'm not optimistic about my chances of shouting down the Internet.
Even if we do nail down the most basic terms under discussion, that isn't going to solve the problem in itself. After that comes evidence about the strategies and how they've worked out. We've got plenty of anecdotes...anecdotes for Africa are like coals to Newcastle (and cliches for Hollywood) in this debate.
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BenWilson, in reply to
To further complicate it, I think it would be a mistake to treat non-voting as one destination.
Yes, you can jump off the swing anywhere. Also, you can jump back on the swing, from anywhere.
ETA: Presumably this means that you can also move around off the swing as well as on it.
ETA2: I'm not sure if this is an unacceptably mixed metaphor. Maybe swing voting is actually more like swing mooring, rather than swinging in a playground. As in the boat is attached to the mooring, but will swing with the tide.
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BenWilson, in reply to
Whether its subtweeting is surely about whether they follow you, rather than whether you follow them?
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tony j ricketts, in reply to
Island Bay isn’t an electorate?
A lot of that is because Green (and maybe NZF) voters support the Labour candidate rather than their party candidate (NZF didn’t contest Mt Albert). The rest I guess is voters hedging their bets: who either support National and don’t care about the electorate vote, or support Labour and wrongly don’t care about the party vote, or support National but want David Shearer to do well in the Labour party.
Sorry, yes, Rongotai, not Island Bay. By the way, I canvassed several National voters who intended voting for Annette as a great electorate MP.
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Brent Jackson, in reply to
Brent asked:
It is interesting to note that a significant number of people (~80) put National at 0, and a similar number of people put Labour at 10. Were they the same people ?
Ben replied:
Interesting question…we’ve got the data. Any thoughts about how to answer that question? You want to know specifically about those 160-odd people?
Perhaps a graph of where National was placed for those who ranked Labour at 10, and a graph of where Labour was placed for those who ranked National at 0, would be enlightening.
Similar graphs for where they placed themselves (including did not or invalid ?).
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Snark exists on Twitter so some of us (ie, me) don’t come and ragepost all over your nice polite threads, Russell. You should be grateful for it. ;)
Well, now you put it that way ...
With a couple of other things going on yesterday, I was feeling a bit weary of being between warring parties (not political parties, or "party" parties).
Otoh, I had an experience with a whale* yesterday and that was incredible.
*Not the blogging kind of whale.
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several National voters who intended voting for Annette as a great electorate MP
I'm a bit cynical about the "great electorate MP thing". You can come across as wonderful if you listen to what people say, agree with them vehemently and then do stuff all about it. As practised by the UK Liberals, most local councillors, etc, etc.
Another top tip for Rongotai Labour is that if you're going to do the "fake local paper" thing, at least do it more than once every three years.
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chris, in reply to
I’d like to see this expanded upon actually:
To maintain an aloof abstraction about it is only possible if you:
1. Don’t actually care, or
2. Are naturally aloof, or
3. Are carefully maintaining aloofness for whatever reason.Some people are just too damn busy to spare sufficient energy, some people don’t understand or feel they aren’t (yet) informed enough to contribute more, others are perhaps biding their time until another makes their mind up for them, perhaps 3 could loosely apply there, heck some people are in prison, legally coerced into political aloofness. I’m seldom persuaded by limiting arguments of this nature when it comes to nature, could this train be worth pursuing wrt examining low turnout and swing voters?
We’ve got plenty of anecdotes…anecdotes for Africa are like coals to Newcastle (and cliches for Hollywood) in this debate.
Also the metaphors and similes, some quite profound in their enhancement of the issues such as your latitude post, very helpful, a case of a few words painting a thousand pictures - well, one very clear image.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
Whether its subtweeting is surely about whether they follow you, rather than whether you follow them?
No sorry this is madness. A bunch of politicians follow me, I don't feel compelled to tag them if I want to comment in public about something they do. I reserve my right of choosing when I want to talk about someone instead of to someone. It's not rude - it's rude to think everyone is entitled to demand that you address them directly. I was accused of "talking behind Grant Robertson's back" once on this very ground. Bizarre.
Subtweeting, to me at least, is when I have a relationship with someone - ie we follow each other, and habitually talk to each other - to the point when talking about them without tagging them would be a departure from the normal conversation. And possibly a rude one although not necessarily.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
*Not the blogging kind of whale.
Saw your vid. Glad to read that he refloated. Hope he made it through the channel out to the ocean without incidence.
I've been priviledged to get up close to a whale (for filming purposes, thanks CBS) It is very special. Sticks with ya. -
BenWilson, in reply to
Agreed. What I meant is that you can't subtweet someone who doesn't follow you, can you? Whether or not it's rude to subtweet those who do...which I...um....don't really have much of an opinion on, not being that much of a twitterphile.
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HORansome, in reply to
I don't know; I arguably subtweet about at least one person who not only doesn't follow me but claims to have blocked me. I think subtweeting is very much about intention rather than the practicalities.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
on the beach....
Otoh, I had an experience with a whale* yesterday and that was incredible.
Do you have a licence for that minke?
<too clouseau to home?>
:- ) -
BenWilson, in reply to
I’d like to see this expanded upon actually:
Yes, that's all true. I was subconsciously subsetting on people who are prolific in their opinions online.
a case of a few words painting a thousand pictures
Yes, words are sometimes the better tool, although in that case I think that it probably only actually works because of the visual image that is conjured in the mind, which is specific to an audience that knows what the maps of this part of the world look like. Anyone else would have had to go to a visual to get what I meant. But then again, there's one for every part of the world, and many are even more striking. Rome is between New York and Boston. Even worse - the North Pole is close to everywhere on the planet if you take only longitude into account. Or sometimes the moon is closer to us than Europe, if you don't take altitude into account. And my fortune, rounded to nearest billion, is the same as John Key's.
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