Posts by Rob Stowell
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rip celia. the world a little blander today. really feel for the patel family - hope they are doing ok.
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Hard News: Where are all the polls at?, in reply to Tom Semmens,
Ilam could be interesting - fingers crossed. At least, if all the green and labour voters strategically voted for Manji. He's a popular councillor, and fairly well-liked and respected locally. Brownlee isn't especially well-liked, even by National people I talk to.
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Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to simon g,
The problem for the Greens is not that they will fall under the threshold, but that they – and therefore all of us – will miss out on some very good potential new MPs.
Yep. I think they need about 7% to get both Chloe Swarbrick and Golriz Ghahraman into parliament (7 and 8 on the list, now Graham has gone.) Definitely worth voting for.
But … I’m still gonna contend, if they consistently look like dropping below 5% on the night (it’s a tricky call, but we all make calculations like this) it’s reasonable to vote for the ‘next-best’ option – as long as that’s still a party you support/like enough/feel will make a positive change.
As someone who’s happily voted Labour many times (tho not lately) and hopes to enjoy a Labour govt next year, right now it’s a pretty easy choice for me – and it would appear from the polls, many other Green voters. -
Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to stephen walker,
a cursory look at the numbers suggests strongly that they will need both the Greens and NZ First to form a government. I mean, are Labour likely to get the largest share of the party vote?
Just at the moment, the unlikely seems ... at least something you don't want to count out :)
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Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to stephen walker,
abandoning the Greens because you think there is a danger that they might not reach 5% and thus waste your vote is potentially very counterproductive, IMHO.
Maybe, maybe not. I'm pretty confident they will bounce back, enough, anyway. But there's no rule that says Labour needs two partners.
Speculating ahead, if National lose, Bill steps down, and Jancinda stays popular, National have real problem finding new talent. Hard to see any of the current mob in cabinet as a credible leader, except Joyce, and he's too ... We could see another long stretch of one-party-on-top. Personally would vastly prefer that to be Labour, but it could leave the Greens out, and a strong opposition is also good.
Democracy is bloody hard to get right. -
Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to izogi,
I wonder if the whole 5% thing in a poll must cause people to reconsider if they want to risk voting for a party that mightn’t make it over.
Definitely. It can cascade like that. I want to vote for them, but if they're polling 4% on Sept 22, sorry - I want to change the govt more...
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Hard News: The new establishment, in reply to Craig Young,
there’s a hefty female gender gap tilt that favours Jacinda Ardern.
Reckon this could be spot on. Looking at eg the student population, there's a lot of soft National vote in young women. Many could be double-happy to vote for not just a woman, but someone under 50 who looks to understand and articulate the world as they see it.
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Talking this over (with a journalist :)) we were pondering how media narratives get spun; and how maintaining control of the narrative is so hard.
But it certainly can happen. Key was extremely talented at this; even when (Dirty Politics, but more esp the ponytail) the narrative got out of his control, he stuck to a line, stayed smiling, minimised what he could, 'moved on'. English has learnt from this; most of the party use the same tactics, though seldom as effectively.
Andrew Little lost control of the narrative very quickly when he said he'd considered resigning. In a funny way, he got back some control by actually resigning, and nominating Jacinda.
Metiria was unprepared - and (it's easy to say now :)) she should have been prepared - for the hard glare of the spotlight. I guess being ready for that means getting all the possible elements of the story lined up and waiting, even if they never come out. Some contingency plans, if things take a nasty turn. I have every sympathy for her, but still felt a sneaking suspicion the 'moral choice' was laid on a little thick (forced to lie 'to feed my baby' vs 'to pay the rent').
For all that, the harsh judgement and ready condemnation of so many Kiwis has been sobering. We've swallowed the BIG LIE: "hard work makes you wealthy; laziness and 'bad choices' make you poor." Now that's some "magical thinking". -
Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to ,
Human beings are way more complex than our educated thinking.
Reading 'The Righteous Mind' at the moment. Nothing very startling so far (finding it disturbingly bias-confirming :)) but a good discussion about how our decisions - moral and otherwise - tend to be driven by instant emotional responses, with reason coming along later to justify/make them respectable.
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"Metiria’s AGM speech prompted me to do something I hadn’t done before: to say, yeah, me too." Me too. That's us out of politics forever :)