Posts by Craig Ranapia
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Lew Stoddart,
That’s almost as important as everything Phil Goff said in three years as opposition leader, in my book.
And he's gone a whole day without over-sharing about who is Cabinet's biggest MILF.
He had no content to convey, nor even anything interesting to say, and this the day after he ascended to Leader of the Opposition. Not promising.
To be fair, nothing is actually a pretty smart thing to be saying at this point even if it fails to enthuse the media-political complex. Putting together a shadow cabinet (and remaking the party organisation, in the longer term) is best done out of the public eye; and Cunliffe certainly didn't do himself any favours writing policy through the media.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Russell Brown,
Damian was responding to the claim that there’s little or no difference between Labour and National and said he thought that in a New Zealand context Labour could be identified with the left.
Yup, and it struck me as a pretty uncontroversial observation. Labour is firmly on the centre-left and National on the centre-right. Obviously, plenty of people around here would like it if Labour’s centre of gravity was more leftish, just as it should be blindingly obvious there are many ways I’d like National to be fiscally drier and socially more “classically liberal”/libertarian than it actually is. But outside the WhaleOily/Standardista bubble, anyone who thinks either party is on the flaming fringes needs to get out of the house more.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Rich Lock,
Freudian slip? No such thing as a mistake?
Preparing myself for disappointment. :)
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Russell Brown,
(I hasten to add that I, for one, welcome our new Broadcasting Overlord.)
I guess this wouldn’t be the right time to discuss an appearance free for my turn here in a fortnight. :)
Now, Shearer needs to spend his Summer break watching this... and taking notes. We must be entertained!
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Russell Brown,
Give him a month or two of media training, he’ll get there.
I hope not, because I find it weirdly endearing that we seem to like downright awkward political leaders – looking at Key, Goff, Brash, even Helen Clark they’d all have American spinners slitting their wrists and writing hefty invoices in blood.
And after all the tumult and the shouting dies, I’ve probably been paying an unhealthy amount of attention to the Republican field in the US. I’ve had question marks over both Shearer and Cunliffe, but when it comes to vile, stupid and flat-out dangerous neither National nor Labour has anything even remotely in the vicinity of the toxic waste dump that’s the GOP.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Sacha,
Shearer seems to be making some of the right noises.
Damn, and I hoping he'd vow to crush Labour's enemies, to see them driven before him, and to hear the lamentations of their women. :)
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to BenWilson,
For starters, Labour nearly got back into government after only 3 years.
Oh, wishful Kool-Aid drinking there Ben. You might as well say Labour "nearly" got back into government in the UK last year, if only they'd been able to stitch up an amusing but improbable seven way coalition.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Paul Williams,
Ben, I think you’re grasping at some sort of false malevolence.
Yup – not the president of the Phil Goff Fan Club here but what exactly could he have done that would have satisfied you Ben? I said at the time that the election result was good enough that he could have pulled a modified Helen/Major and said, “OK, anyone who thinks I’m not fit to continue as leader can mount a leadership challenge at the first post-election caucus meeting rather than sleazing along to the Press Gallery over the next three years. Because we all know that's not going to play right into the Government's hands.” But he didn’t, so there we go and here we are.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Damian Christie,
I’m not trying to be glib, but it is worth pointing out that Labour ran the country for 9 years until quite recently, and that the media hasn’t changed a lot in that time. So it’s not that stacked against the left.
Oh, don't bother with your stupid facts. I guess the only reason National got its lowest share of the popular vote in the party's history in 2002 was that outrageously biased media bamboozling the idiot sheeple. What other reasons could there possibly be?
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to martinb,
Yes, the leadership team should have realised coming at a guy who’s known strength is his work in a financial industry they had to look convincing with the numbers to minimise that strength not actively make it a weakness.
It's not even about Key's background, but basic retail politics. Hell, Michael Cullen could go on a charm offensive and forget the charm bit but when when Labour went into the '99 campaign promising to raise the top tax rate the costings were there from the start and everyone was strictly on message. Including Clark.
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