Posts by Rob Stowell
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Up Front: Stand for... Something, in reply to ,
What about this one :)
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There must be some chance the pro-fern vote (the fernies?) will be split three ways, allowing the koru, backed by the considerable anti-fern vote and general rabble of lefties to win with <30%.
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Hard News: Everybody has one, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
John Key does it too and relishes it. He has an opinion on everything and has decided he knows best. It’s rather handy Hosking agrees with him.
What makes both stand out from almost everyone else in the NZ blathersphere is the degree of confidence they display in ther opinions. We all know confidence is attractive. It breeds confidence. It feels as if they’re a part of what’s moved ‘the political middle’ in NZ, just by dint of sounding certain they are always right and reasonable.
Bertrand Russell’s“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wise people so full of doubts.”*
may be true, but we still long for certainty and admire it in others. (My gut feeling is in politics ‘the liberal left’ tends to hold more doubts; the ‘authoritarian right’ more certainty. I think Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn also benefit from the confidence they have in their ideas (I also think the substance is vitally important, and happen to agree with much of it :)); Donald Trump is all about the triumph of confidence over substance.)
* I think Yeats said it first and better? :) -
Polity: Meet the middle, in reply to Alex Coleman,
Isn't the 'gap' smaller between the centre and the right because the right isn't really united on this view that dole=bludger?
Spot on. If 75/33 + 54/33 + 47/33 do NOT think dole = bludger, that's a solid majority of 58.6% of voters.
Yet somehow that's justification for adopting right wing thinking/framing on this issue? -
Polity: Meet the middle, in reply to Rob Salmond,
Then you have a decision to make of "should I press this rhetorical button or not?" In the absence of better data, the group averages are a good initial guide.
You could be guided by what you genuinely believe to be for the best :)
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Interesting post, as always. For one thing, the numbers seem to explain Labour’s ‘let’s throw beneficiaries under the bus’ approach.
And that’s where strategy and tactics come into conflict. Principled leadership is important. Knowing what a party stands for, what it will fight for, is gut-level important.
So Labour claim to stand up for the underdog, the weak and the poor. But then there’s the guy on the roof, the wholesale adoption of right-wing narratives on social welfare (and economics generally).
At a gut level it makes you think: what will they fight for? When will they throw (my favoured policy/group) under the bus too?
Chasing votes at the expense of principles, looks shifty and gutless. You can lose the votes of the centre and the left at the same time. You should be reading and engaging with Saying what we actually mean on inequality. :) -
Polity: In defence of the centre, in reply to Sacha,
Nails it.
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McCarten has gone quiet lately. But when he split it felt like Anderton had run out of kudos and was running on ego.
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Polity: In defence of the centre, in reply to Joe Wylie,
McCarten has gone quiet lately. But when he split it felt like Anderton had run out of kudos and was running on ego.
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Roll up, roll up! Scoff a dancing turd or down a dead rat! If 'e can, Canterbury can't. ..
