Posts by Eddie Clark
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Meanwhile, John Ansell is going completely nutso about Helen Clark over in the comments at Poneke's blog. Gracious in victory, much? And this is an intelligent, personable, sensible guy, from what I've seen and heard from him. Gah, if anyone here gets to this level of personal attacks about Key or English, please shoot them, Russell.
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No - US constitutional amendments are harder to do than Californian ones - you cant just stick it on the ballot and have 50% +1 people think it's a good idea.
Besides, Prop 8 was only California (although there were also anti-gay amendments on ballots in Arkansas, Florida, and Arizona), and the trend of teh gayz away from the Democrats at this election was nationwide.
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Where is Craig? Craig?
Hey, Craig isn't the only gay in this village. Just... erm... the loudest and most right wing.
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Giovanni, last time there was a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage on the table, supported by Bush (sponsored, incidentally by..... Marilyn Musgrave!). So if anything gay Americans had more to lose with a Republican president than this time round. It was more of a wedge issue in 2004. Still, I don't really think that explains it.
(Of course, the 2004 amendment died - not enough crazy congresspeoples to progress it, but it was on the table at the election.)
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"Brain Edwards"? Careful, Roger Douglas will try to eat him. Braiiiiins.
On a more serious note:
Pew has some fascinating exit poll numbers on Obama's victory, showing he made gains in virtually every voter group (the exception: over-65s). He also made gains over 04 in nearly every religious sub-group, mostly notably the religious but "unaffiliated" voters.
Interestingly, Obama did way worse that Kerry amongst teh gayz. I have no idea why - maybe related to disappointment at Clinton not being the nominee? Gay peeps seem to have this inexplicable love of Hilary.
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Craig:
Oh I know Chris Trotter is batshit, I was just thinking in the same sorts of terms as I was with the US... with Bush out of power, what's going to motivate Jon Stewart these days? Not to mention the Daily Kos.
Although given the way Redstate/Little Green Footballs/Michelle Malkin behaved while the republicans were in charge... more realistically, I'm expecting more shrillness from the left (most of which I will probably agree with in substance if not in tone - shrillness hurts my ears), and continued idiocy from the Kiwiblog right.
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If anyone wants some entertainment (and has the stomach for it), the kiwiblog crowd is proposing disenfranchising Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin voters because they're not ideologically correct. Well, actually they want to cut them off New Zealand, but given that that is physically impossible, it seems they'll settle for disenfranchisement.
I thought they'd get LESS crazy in victory. Obviously not.
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Oh I know all that, Craig, blah blah blah. It just took too long to say, and I knew you'd say it anyway. So... thanks :D. It was all just setup for calling Roger Douglas a zombie, anyway.
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People should stop grumbling about a lack of diversity in National's caucus... their new coalition partners have introduced an exciting new minority into Parliament:
Roger Douglas, our first MP who is an Undead New Zealander (known in less polite circles as a zombie).
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You couldn't resist, could you, Graeme :P?
I don't think one should go so far as removing the threshold, but reducing it to 2 or 3% and getting rid of the stupid electorate MP rule would mean that small issue parties that actually had a national following could get in on the party vote [in this election, Greens, Act, NZ First], while personality cults with no substantive support outside a home electorate [Jim, Peter Dunne] wouldn't get to drag a hanger-on with them into Parliament.
I don't think the world would have been worse off without Judy Turner, Gordon Copeland (with UF) and Matt Robson (with Jim) not being in Parliament