Posts by Craig Ranapia
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It aint such a bad thing to put up billboards comparing our elected political party leaders to various dictators and mass murderers, but oh my paws and whiskers, people gossip about sex. Please.
Alex: I'm really trying hard not to lose my shit in a seriously unseasonal, Grinch-like manner so pay close attention.
Please cite anywhere I've said It aint such a bad thing to put up billboards comparing our elected political party leaders to various dictators and mass murderers. To the contrary, I've actually been quite vocal around the local blogisphere suggesting to both the loony left and the rabid right that screeching 'Nazi' and 'Stalinist' at each other is stupid in ways I shouldn't have to spell out yet again.
And, sorry, I just don't see the news value or legitimate public interest in salacious tittle-tattle that even Ratshit Galucoma and the other gossip hags wouldn't print being treated as news. Personally, I couldn't give a flying fuck at a donut if Helen Clark was a big ol' closeted bull dyke, in a marriage blanc with a big ol' daddy bear. Seems to obsess Ian Wishart, but he's a nut. Don Brash is the most unlikely Don Juan since... well, ever? Still don't care.
I actually feel very sorry for both Je Lin Brash and Peter Davis got dragged into this kind of crap because they were stupid enough to marry politicians, Foolish, perhaps, but not the kind of offense that deserves the punishment of having photographers staking out your house and dragging your marriage through the dirt to entertain retards without lives.
Hell, FDR had a long-term extramarital affair and Churchill was widely rumored (although never publicly until after his death) to be the father of his sister-in-law's oldest son. Somehow, their positions in history have survived.
And finally, Alex:
So IWI/KIWI implies what?
Well, Alex, it sure as shit doesn't imply that Don Brash or the National Party believes that its a mistake that Maori are allowed to vote, or share's Hansen's hardline views on immigration. (The short version: She doesn't like it.) But I guess crass and offensively simple-minded equations of politicians you don't like to bigots and thugs for rhetorical effect isn't so bad after all?
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Whatever his shortcomings as a writer may be, Blumenthal was there, and you and I were not.
When the book is laced with incredibly detailed accounts of conversations that he wasn't privy to unless one of the parties was wearing a wire, I'll take that with the proverbial seasoning. I've got John Campbell's excellent two volume biography of Margaret Thatcher, and with all due respect to the lady herself I find it a little more plausible in many respects that her own memoirs. Sometimes, its better to put your trust in people who aren't there, and aren't quite so heavily invested in a putting a favorable spin on things.
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WH:
With all due disrespect to Sydney Blumenthal, I read The Clinton Wars with the same extreme skepticism that I' applied to Alistair Campbell's diaries. The self-justification of courtiers is a literary genre with a long pedigree, but usually more enjoyable as fiction than history.
And that's really unfair to any half-way competent novelist, who can keep the internal contradictions and implausible characterisation in their narratives to a minimum. -
Just to nit-pick myself, I'm sure Andrew Little would be quite surprised to learn he's connected with a non-existent trade union called the EMPU. He's the national secretary of the Amalgamated Engineering Printing & Manufacturing Union (EPMU).
Preview is my friend, just not one one I visit often enough.
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Didn't Don Brash accuse the Greens of treachery for representing NZ poorly to people overseas? Isn't this the same?
No, Don - then again, I'm one of those cranks who thinks 'treachery' is another T-word (like 'terrorism') that shouldn't be thrown around carelessly if you want to be taken at all seriously.
Yes. As personal attacks go I think that has got to be one of the worst I have seen in NZ. Even beats Don Brash's "no respect for the institution of marriage" letter.
But running an equally hysterical front page equating Brash to Pauline Hansen - you know the nice lady who opined it was a mistake ever letting the Abbos vote - wasn't ever so slightly offensive?
And to be blunt, Don, while I find those billboards absurdly hyperbolic, it isn't even in the same ballpark as the bipartisan panty-sniffing orgy that broke out around Don Brash's alleged extra-marital affair and the alleged sexual proclivities of Helen Clark's husband. Want to talk about the lowlight of personal attack politics in this country? We're not even in the gutter, let alone that particular sewer.
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What I have read about the US suggests that regulating "electioneering" is a form of whack-a-mole, in which everyone goes about influencing elections through issue advertising and 527's.
Yup, McCain-Fiengold sure didn't turn out to be to the magic bullet its more optimistic proponents were selling it as. I sure haven't heard of any K Street lobbyists or lawyers who specialize in electoral litigation going out of business...
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Obama's a smoker too? Dang, my gay-dar might be crap but I knew there was something about the guy I liked. :)
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And I am more than happy with that. If you want to run a huge million dollar campaign arguing for a 63% tax rate on business and outlining all the lovely reasons why it's such a great idea then you can. If you slap "oh and vote Labour coz they agree with me" on the end of that then you have just written an ad for a political party
Really, I'd rather see (for the sake of argument) the EMPU running that kind of campaign with their own resources explicitly, rather than the too cute for words semantic two-step the unions trot out every election cycle.
And for the record, the only way the EMPU is going to influence my vote is if Andrew Little agrees to role-play Mellors to my Constance Chatterly. Which would constitue a corrupt practice, just not in the sense intended by the Electoral Act.
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I think that's true if you're the campaign director. But in a dogfight like the Democratic primaries are turning out to be, to low/medium level campaign staffers who are slogging it away and probably passionately believe in their 'guy' and probably can't see that forest for the trees.
Quite true, Kyle. Which is why it actually matters that leadership... well, leads, even if you're not the person who coined the phrase "vast right-wing conspiracy". :)
It's just not good enough to position yourself as the only person who can stand up against the Republican smear machine, and then have your own campaign workers caught taking a leaf out of the Rove play book. It just lays you open to questions about whether you can run a country when you can't even keep your primary workers in line. At worse, you're raising the perception that you're a hypocrite who doesn't even have the guts to sling your own dirt, but will tacitly condone expendable proxies doing it instead.
As I said on another thread, people respond to Obama because they believe he can change the game, while Clinton is the status quo.
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Neil;
Fair enough, but I think any PAS reader who is really interested can find endless reports on the resignations of the two volunteers. All I wanted to do is provide a link that showed I just wasn't making it up in some Clinton-hating fever dream.
When you get right down to it, WTF were these people thinking forwarding a nasty smear against an opponent, period? Domestically, if I was National's campaign director I'd be making it pretty damn clear that nobody connected with the campaign should be forwarding anything about an opposing candidate to anyone I wouldn't be happy to see leading the six o'clock news. Its only as complicated as you want to make it, IMO.
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