Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Marcus Turner,
Overall, to what extent are election strategies aimed at the self-interest of swinging voters? I have this image in my mind of a democracy’s fate being decided by the self-interest of a few, no matter how the majority of party-loyal voters (principled or prejudiced) cast their ballots.
I'm a tribal Labour voter, although that's partly for a lack of alternatives. In a really diverse political market I might be able to jump between various centre-left parties, but even MMP party politics requires a degree of inertia you only get from larger, broad-church parties.
I’m sure there are challenges in measuring these properties, but analogous qualities seem to able be quantified for statistical studies of other social and psychological phenomena.
To someone who’s studied this sort of thing, my questions might seem naïve but, as far as I can see, factors such as how the leader of a party is perceived by swing-voters are just as likely to affect a party’s likelihood of achieving the treasury benches, as the thought given to its principles and policies.
It's the curse of modern politics that so much time has to be spent wooing a bunch of people who can't decide how they want to vote.
One very savvy thing that Helen Clark did after becoming leader -- or after seeing off the attempt to roll her anyway -- was to go and meet a lot of people, around the country. It's surprising how effective, even in the age of modern electronic communications, meeting people is. Len Brown met a lot of people in his campaign.
But Clark, even though she was poor on TV for a long time, was actually always bloody good face-to-face. She could work a room. And that's what has shocked me seeing Goff up close a couple of times -- how bad he was at that. He can't always have been that bad -- he has a very safe seat and an excellent local electoral organisation -- but he just seemed all at sea.
Unlike Lew, I expect Labour to be policy-driven, and for that policy to be evidence-based. One of the things that really irks me about the present government is that it is neither of those things.
In areas I know a little about -- from broadband policy to regional TV funding -- National has made a habit of thumbing its nose at process, of and pulling a swifty on stakeholders. It merely seems to be a matter of what Steven Joyce says that goes. It is a piss-poor way to run a country.
I realise this isn't much to do with "The Left" -- tbh the finer details of arguments between Lew and Chris Trotter elude me -- and it's probably not much of a concern of the "average voter" and certainly won't interest Duncan Garner, but it does matter.
For my money, one of the more impressive achievements of the Clark government was telecommunications reform. Long, hard, boring and still only partially effective -- but important.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to giovanni tiso,
Like him or not, Goff has done that.
And yet, how many times have you heard Goff interviewed on the radio and come away wondering what the hell he actually said?
I think there has to be an ability to consistently and convincingly speak from the position you’ve set out for yourself.
The thing is, a number of Labour’s MPs – most notably those in Christchurch of late – have been effective and informed Opposition members. It’s not as if the whole Parliamentary party is performing poorly.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Danyl Mclauchlan,
You do not remember correctly. The first thing we found out about Worth was that the PM had sacked him.
But not that he was subject to police investigation. He had resigned for "personal reasons" and there would be no further comment.
At the time, Key had known about the allegations for a fortnight -- the same length of time that Goff kept his own counsel on Hughes.
I think it's fair to say that Key had far less to lose by throwing Worth under the bus than Goff did with respect to Hughes, his popular party whip. OTOH, Goff chose to make political capital capital our of Key's prevarication.
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Hard News: It Began ... in Chicago, in reply to Rich Lock,
Well, as a teenage metalhead, I got into it all arse-backward - started listening to crazy industrial stuff - KMFDM, Einstürzende* Neubauten, Coil, etc (now there's some tunes that'll really get a party started and a smile on every dial), and realised that there wasn't really all that much difference conceptually between that stuff and the harder techno.
And before that, Cabaret Voltaire, Clock DVA et al. So yes, the electronic music was already there. In Sheffield, the same people essentially moved on via Warp Records and made dance music. Bleep!
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Rik,
I agree – I’m all for it. And you know what – National are looking in to these areas.
They've had two and half years and all the mandate they could have wanted. I'm fairly sure they've done everything they were going to do in that area.
I, too, am a high-income earner, but I recall the years with a young family when it was pretty hard. But I'd debate that it was actually easy to malinger on a benefit under Labour: it wasn't. And I think what's happened in the past couple of years for sickness and invalid's beneficiaries is simply wrong: they're vulnerable and they've seen the goalposts moved without the rules being actually changed.
I think that WFF is a fair target for National -- there are reasonable arguments against it. But some family earners will get a terrible shock if National guts WFF and they lose their tax cuts and then some.
Basically, I think the last tax cuts buggered the revenue base to an extent where the government can't run the sort of country they purported to be able to run. The comatose nature of the economy doesn't suggest a high degree of stewardship either.
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The Turks might help everyone else out now by defining a conclusion:
The Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signalled that Turkey is ready to act as a mediator to broker an early ceasefire in Libya, as he warned that a drawn-out conflict risked turning the country into a "second Iraq" or "another Afghanistan" with devastating repercussions both for Libya and the Nato states leading the intervention.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Erdogan said that talks were still under way with Muammar Gaddafi's government and the Transitional National Council. He also revealed that Turkey is about to take over the running of the rebel-held Benghazi harbour and airport to facilitate humanitarian aid, in agreement with Nato.
Not that Erdogan has any great democratic credibility, having recently had 27 journalists jailed on what look like dubious charges.
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Hard News: Libya, in reply to BenWilson,
Or then again, when the alternatives are considered, it might turn out that Republican management still looks as bat-shit crazy as it did when he got elected.
They’re actually much crazier. When Michelle Bachmann is hinting at a run for the White House, you know you’re through the looking glass.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Rik,
Sounds like we live in similar worlds – it’s just that the fairies aren’t in charge in my one.
Which might be a fairer thing to say if you'd cited any facts rather than simply presenting your claims as self-evidently correct.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Danyl Mclauchlan,
Are KiwiSaver, Working for Families and the Cullen fund the policies of a conservative government?
In an old-fashioned way, yeah, sorta.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Tristan,
Connor Roberts quit the mayors office they need you in Wellington!
They do, but he'd be a mug to go there right now. I would not be surprised to see him running the campaign after this year's, though.