Hard News: A week being a long time in politics
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And apparently the CEO of Roy Morgan says it is too early for “teapot tapes” to have had an effect on their latest poll, according to this interview at scoop.
I can’t get the darn thing to play all the way though – can anyone tell me what she says says about the poll in relation to the tea pot matters?
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Kracklite, in reply to
As Russell has said rhetorically to Paul Holmes, “What is your fucking point?”, I’m intrigued by the fact that Joyce, Farrar et al are emphasising polls that say that the public don’t feel that the contents of the tape matter overmuch, or that the recording may have been illegal and unethical… and studiously ignoring the real question, as many of us see it, whether the response has been insane. Shirley that’s not an acid tent.
It’s “interesting” that supposedly neutral information such as poll results are being used to actively frame the terms of the debate – answer first, question second, as Lewis Carroll might have said (although we’ll see if it’s being done successfully).
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Feel free to explain why you disagree. It’s the only article I’ve seen that examines the timeline around the recent opinion polls and a certain cuppa.
And does so by drawing a conclusion ("Logically, it can only have been the tea tapes") then making a shit load of assumptions that don't add up to me. OK, I know The Standard has a blatant editorial bias (and a rather tiresome compulsion to spite-fuck David Farrar, which he's stupid enough to reciprocate) but Russell or Keith could manage more genuinely useful analysis in the immediate aftermath of a three day bender.
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Sacha, in reply to
The post has some useful information on timing regardless of any analysis you may or may not agree with. You'll notice I don't link to that site often.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
As Russell has said rhetorically to Paul Holmes, “What is your fucking point?”, I’m intrigued by the fact that Joyce, Farrar et al are emphasising polls that say that the public don’t feel that the contents of the tape matter overmuch, or that the recording may have been illegal and unethical… and studiously ignoring the real question, as many of us see it, whether the response has been insane. Shirley that’s not an acid tent.
Quite. I don't regard poll results as the determinant of right here, and I will not be surprised if any poll damage to National is very modest. It's not about that for me.
If it turns out that sending police into newsrooms a week out from an election has benefited National politically, I may express some very unhappy thoughts.
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Lawyer Andrew Geddis dissects Farrar's shrill response to Holmes's witterings.
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Hooten believes Joyce is a strategic genius.
Feel free to disagree, Craig. :) -
3410,
Hooton believes Joyce is a strategic genius.
Hooton is the punditry version of push-polling, if you ask me. He pretends commentary, but really he's all about selling the talking points; in this case that teapot-tape-gate was a stroke of genius, not a blunder.
And if you can get enough people to believe that, it becomes so.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Feel free to disagree, Craig. :)
Hear that merry clatter? It's the sound of a couple of crushed up paracetamol tablets being stirred into a freshly made short black. It's all I've got right now.
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Steve Parks, in reply to
As Russell has said rhetorically to Paul Holmes, “What is your fucking point?”,
Is that question directed at me?
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
Lawyer Andrew Geddis dissects Farrar’s shrill response to Holmes’s witterings.
While the good professor’s energy is admirable and the results can be entertaining, like his willingness to engage with the squeaky element that occasionally infest the DimPost, you find yourself wondering why he bothers. Given Farrar’s tendency to come across as a bad parody of a hair-splittingly pious theologian (anyone remember the endless tying-in-knots nonsense re. the materiality or otherwise of Brash’s emails?), it’s rather like the intellectual equivalent of squeezing zits.
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Sacha, in reply to
really he's all about selling the talking points; in this case that teapot-tape-gate was a stroke of genius, not a blunder.
and that it was Key's master-stroke, not Joyce's
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Kracklite, in reply to
Why am I not surprised? Dorothy Parker, anyone? I'm only surprised it took him this long.
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Kracklite, in reply to
No, not in my case. I’m genuinely sorry if I seemed to be rude. It wasn’t my intention… well, I do often intend to be rude, but not to you or anyone here, in this case.
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John Drinnan unmasks the teapot genius.
Who is advising the PM on this Mexican stand-off with the media?
A source familiar with the Government communications strategy said the PM's attack on the Herald on Sunday and refusal to explain his comments to John Banks was a strategic decision, rather than a symptom of concern or panic from the media storm.
It was based on the premise that Key was so popular the public would support the PM and any negative outcome would be less than if the details of his conversation with Banks were actually released, the source suggested.
The expectation was that any damage to media relations in the campaign could be fixed with a charm offensive in the New Year.
The sharp edge of the criticism reflects the style of Kevin Taylor, Key's chief press secretary, who lacks the skills of Helen Clark's Mike Munro.
That said, Steven Joyce can play a heavy hand when media transgress his rules and the Rena debacle revealed his lack of experience in handling a media storm.
Experienced National strategist Murray McCully is not playing a big role in the case, and that might explain how it has escalated.
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Sacha, in reply to
a couple of crushed up paracetamol tablets being stirred into a freshly made short black
does that actually work?
#notametaphor -
Kracklite, in reply to
Hooton is the punditry version of push-polling, if you ask me.
Couldn't agree more. Had a rant about it on another thread.
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While we're at it, here's Lew on Joyce's statistical tactics.
Leaving aside questions about the veracity of these figures (they could be utterly fabricated and we’d be none the wiser; Bomber reckons they’re bollocks), this actually is a case of a politician deploying polling data to send a message, not only to the media, but to the public: If you care about this you’re out of touch, disconnected, in the minority, obsessed with trivia, and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
While I disagree with his assessment, what’s more interesting is how he framed that assessment: as a normative argument about what election campaigns ought to be about, and what “real New Zealanders” care about; echoing John Key’s “issues that really matter” rhetoric, which is precisely what all the National supporters I’m in touch with have been saying: nothing to see here, it’s a sideshow, can we get back to the substance, and all that.
Which is pretty ironic given that the Nats have done extremely well for most of the preceding five years by staying the hell away from policy arguments wherever possible.
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Steve Parks, in reply to
No that’s okay, I thought it probably wasn’t.
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Anyway, I’ve managed to hear most of that scoop interview with Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine. Basically, she’s saying it will be next week before polls really feature any potential impact of the tea tapes issues. -
Steve Parks, in reply to
I used to consider Farrar a valuable commentator. But recently I’m less impressed. Maybe it’s the nearness of the election. He seems to be getting a bit petty sometimes, and his analysis on this tea pot tape issue is way off base.
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Sacha, in reply to
way off base
or desperately trying to whistle to them
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Kracklite, in reply to
Glad about that (likewise, hopefully Deep Red, whom I quoted).
I await the polls with interest, but even so, polls are predicated on the assumption that people will rationally express their overriding judgements. I don’t just mean that the “proles” are fools, since I’m sceptical of reason and consciousness in general. Prostetnic Vogon Joyce might be right, or rather the shade of Muldoon whom he is channeling, in saying that the public are annoyed by the distraction of this specific issue, but then again, they may or may not start thinking, “Well Key’s a bit smarmy really, and a bit insecure… and really, a bit of a dick when you come down to it… he tries a bit hard… don’t get me wrong, he’s a nice guy and I’d like to have a beer with him, but…”
Choices are often much fuzzier than pollsters will have you believe (after all, they’re trying to justify their own roles). I agree with William Goldman’s axiom, “Nobody knows anything”, wholeheartedly.
That said, I don’t predict a collapse of the National vote (people have too much invested to repudiate it all at once), but I think that there certainly won’t be an absolute majority, and the next term will not be comfortable for the Pry Minster now that the sharks smell blood in the water.
Can’t say that I’m happy with a lot of the protest vote probably going to Winston Peters either. He will be though – he’ll probably think that revenge is best served hot after all.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
. . . his analysis on this tea pot tape issue is way off base.
To me it's a close replay of the frantic bloviation over the Hollow Men farce. Same for Hooton, though lacking Farrar's inherent obsequiousness he doesn't necessarily believe his own spin.
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After tear-gassing of Occupy protestors at University of California Davis, a junior staff member has written to his ultimate boss, the Chancellor who ordered the police in.
This is what balls sound like. Heard anything remotely similar in NZ politics any time lately?
You are responsible for it because this is what happens when UC Chancellors order police onto our campuses to disperse peaceful protesters through the use of force: students get hurt.
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I am writing to tell you in no uncertain terms that there must be space for protest on our campus. There must be space for political dissent on our campus. There must be space for civil disobedience on our campus. There must be space for students to assert their right to decide on the form of their protest, their dissent, and their civil disobedience—including the simple act of setting up tents in solidarity with other students who have done so. There must be space for protest and dissent, especially, when the object of protest and dissent is police brutality itself. You may not order police to forcefully disperse student protesters peacefully protesting police brutality. You may not do so. It is not an option available to you as the Chancellor of a UC campus. That is why I am calling for your immediate resignation.
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Kracklite, in reply to
I don't think Farrar believes his own spin either. I don't think belief even comes into it. This is a ... mammal (perhaps)... that admires Carl Rove. If anything, the more he spins, the more he'll congratulate himself on his perceived skill in spinning.
Naturally obsequious though? Oh yes.
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