Posts by Craig Ranapia
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And to muddy the waters further, on Brian Edwards' blog, someone out there apparently pretended to be Duncan Garner and posted something more snarky than snarky. The real Garner eventually pointed out the discrepancies between the e-mail addresses involved. On top of that, there was a post under the name of a certain Dave Fane.
And Doctor Edwards gets real time practical schooling in why you need to be more proactive than turning on the "moderate comments" feature in Blogger to keep trolls off your virtual lawn.
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On a slight tangent, Russell, you might want to have a chat with Simon Wilson after the taping tomorrow night. His take on the super-mayoral landscape is fascinating, counter-intuitive (he made a pretty convincing case to me that the Shore may vote National but shouldn't be considered an easy lock for Banks) and contains sobering food for thought for both candidates. Being parochial for a moment, I don't think either of them have shown any kind of firm grip on, or even much interest in, local issues north of the Harbour Bridge and neither can afford to be that complacent.
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That's not to say that Brown is the Labour candidate.
No, and I have to spank myself for using a derogatory term like "sock puppet" in reference to Brown and Banks. Well out of order, young man. :)
These are natural alignments. I don't think it's " fucking arrogant and sneaky", it's realistic and unsurprising.
Could you take it on faith that I'd be severely underwhelmed to find out that Key or any senior figure in the Auckland National Party organisation had been quietly *cough* discouraging any potential vote-splitter on the right from standing against Banks? It would be unsurpising, but in management-speak not the most useful of interventions, long-term. Voters don't take at all kindly to the idea that their electoral choices are being stitched up by the backroom boys, as someone who saw close up how Bolger's "electoral accommodations" (and cluster-fucking his own candidate literally at the last minute) destroyed National in Wellington Central. I know people who still have neither forgiven nor forgotten what happened to Mark Thomas.
And just on the QT, you'd be quite surprised to know how many National/ACT would rather submit to a gravel-and-barbed wire enema than lift a finger to help Banks. Funny old world...
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So what's your problem exactly with Labour deciding not to run a candidate against him and split the liberal vote?
Before I go into the interpretive dance portion of the programme, I don't give a shit what Labour does or doesn't do -- including coming out and openly endorsing Brown. But Labour is not "the left" any more than National is "the right", as plenty of Greens and ACT supporters will patiently man-splain to you at great length.
For that matter, I don't think Banks would be taking dictation from Key and Rodney Hide either, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't be seriously pissed off if it came out the National Party was pressuring anyone not to stand and risk splitting the right-vote. It's just fucking arrogant and sneaky. If political parties want to get involved in local body politics, they should do so openly then back off and let us stupid peasants make up our own minds as we see fit. If a million odd voters don't obligingly conform to their strategic interests of the Labour and National Parties, tough titty.
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Yes yes, we live in a post-ideological world. Sure. And Banks doesn't happen to be the former minister of police of a national government, with current backing by councillors of various centre-right party affiliation. And Len Brown is not a liberal leftie. Happy now?
If you'd like to de-snark a little bit, Gio, if Labour (or National for that matter) wants to select who stands for Mayor in my city they're perfectly free to openly select candidates, run a ticket and take their chances. Having the backroom boys monstering other candidates into giving their sock puppets a clear run? Not happy at all..
I know there's a certain class of political activist who regards actual elections as an impertinent imposition, and voters as retarded numpties who can't really be trusted, but they get on my last nerve. And you know something, if Len Brown narrowly beats Banks, who would have won if the right-leaning vote hadn't been "split"? TOO FUCKING BAD -- as long as we only require a plurality to elect mayors instead of an absolute majority I'll live.
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, I've heard from some ex politicians that the Labour party is firmly shutting down any contenders from the left in an attempt to keep Browns vote in place.
I think it's pretty much an open secret that's exactly what the Labour machine want, but riddle me this gentle readers:
Who exactly decided that Brown and Banks were the queens of two clashing Borg collectives known as "The Left" and "The Right"? (I must have missed the VRWC coven meeting where Banks was anointed with a tiara carved from a baby skull.) Seems a teeny tad previous, to me.
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Penny Bright is ... unusual.
That's... polite. :)
I gather Ewen's been a useful councillor out West.
I thought Ewen's health had been a bit wobbly the last couple of years, so it's nice to know he's in the pink, as it were.
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I'd be much more concerned if they were meeting people for lunch/dinner and weren't paying.
I don't know about that. Purely hypothetically, if I was standing for the Greater Auckland mayoralty $810 would strike me as a modest investment in a congenial, discreet evening to woo potential big-ticket donors or strike up relationship with players in social/political networks south of the Bridge otherwise closed to me. (Though I'd probably draw the line at field trips to bondage-themed faux-lesbian strip clubs or quite literally pandering for support.) God, I'd be working the rubber chicken circuit like local body politics' answer to Nikki Watson.
And I know this makes me sound like a sanctimonious prig, but you bet your arse that in the context of standing for arguably the post powerful elected office in the country, I'd be more than usually forthcoming about who I socialise with. There's more than enough people who are going to take potshots no matter what you do or say -- fairly or not, that's the nature of retail politics. But you can make an effort not to load the gun and obligingly stand still.
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And I see Craig has bought up his serious catholicism again. Isn't there a cure for that? Haha just joking Craigy baby.
I'm a big boy, I can handle it. :) But I'm not joking at all in saying this is playing unholy havoc with my blood pressure.
On Saturday Vatican officials compared the raids and investigation into allegations of child sex abuse with the treatment of the Church under communist rule.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, described the detention of priests "serious and unbelievable".
"There are no precedents, not even under the old communist regimes," he said.
Oh, SHUT THE FUCK UP!
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People should be able to meet with the mayor and not have that become a public issue just because he paid for the meal.
@Kyle: With all due and sincere respect, Kyle, if those "people" were lobbyists, big-ticket campaign contributors or stood to make a hell of a lot of money from Greater Auckland contracts then it's a perfectly legitimate matter of public interest.
And I'm less than impressed with this from Brown:
And he has utterly refused to identify who he and mayoress Shan Inglis hosted at their table for an $810 fundraiser dinner at Volare restaurant in Manurewa.
He had good reasons for refusing to identify his guests, he said.
"It is against my principles. I am fighting back on what I believe are the key issues of this campaign and what people are vitally interested in."
So what's the 'principle' here? As I've said elsewhere, I'm the secretary of a body that receives modest but highly competitive support from the Auckland City Council. It would be entirely unacceptable if I just happened to have the members of the committee considering that application as my guests at a fundraiser.
As Russell would say -- noob mistake. Which is a good segue to...
It seems worth noting that dozens of ministers from either major party have had exactly the same kind of expenses accepted without naming everyone (or anyone) at the table.
And I recall you being rather bemused why Jenny Shipley was so damn evasive about dining with Kevin Roberts. I'm sure Helen Clark was thankful for the early Christmas, but it was entirely an unforced error on Shipley's part. As Georgina Beyer put it, in another context, nobody can throw shit at you if you've put it all out there yourself.
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