Elections 2017: tabloid politics, peak scandal and campaign bloat

My first response on reading about the “Winston Peters Superannuation Scandal” (because what else are we calling it) was something along the lines “O.F.F.S, not again!” as Mondays news delivered what promised to be another two weeks of my life that I won’t get back.

But, after taking a moment to calm down, I realized that my initial response had merely been a knee jerk reaction, conditioned (like a drooling Pavlov dog) over the last few months by the veritable avalanche of explosive political change and high wire scandal that this once dull election campaign had morphed into; and that things were not going to play out as they usually did.

To start with this did not have the same catastrophic tone as other recent scandals, as an accidental $18,000 oversight which was immediately paid back (Winston’s scenario) has a lot less clout than announcing that you knowingly and willingly scammed the system for funds which you never paid back and then further investigation reveals that you also committed electoral fraud to boot (Meteria Turei’s scenario for example).

Second is that this is Winston Peters we are talking about here: a long term political operator who is as canny as a box of foxes and as wily as a coyote, who has survived numerous attempts to take him down and lives and breathes political scandal (albeit that he is usually the one dishing it up) in the same manner that we dutifully get out of bed and go to work every morning.

So when I was asked later that day about what I thought would happen my response was along the lines of “small potatoes, he will survive” rather than “OMG! He is dead meat” (often my previous response to such situations) and instead of immediately banging something out for this blog I decided to wait and see how things would play out.

And Winston did not disappoint as by the end of the first day he was already on the attack, claiming that this was a hit job by National; denying the sum he repaid and turning the questions back on Bill and the B Team in a master class of political jujitsu which has seen the coverage of the last two days switch from Winston to Bill English and his ministerial harem (Paula Bennet, Judith Collins and Anne Tolley).

But I am not going to be covering events on this matter any further (as they have had endless coverage already) except to say that I was not the only one who thought this was more than your usual "political explosion" and that this was another round of “dirty politics” as usual, as many including both Chris Trotter, Tracy Watkins and myself (with my Neutralizing Winston post a few months back) have noted*.

What is worth discussing here is that how Winston's superannuation scandal illustrates how the whole campaign has descended into a space which has been dubbed “tabloid politics”: a steaming nexus of populist sentiment, personality politics and media massaging that turns political coverage into something like an Episode of the TV shows Survivor (Outwit, Outplay and Outlast) or Game of Thrones (only one shall sit on it).

Of course we have already seen such developments overseas (especially the US) but it still remains surprising to see how fast it has metastasized in New Zealand this campaign.

The trajectory of the recent political media in NZ (Tapegate; Labours student “interns”; Meteria Turei’s benefit fraud; The fall of Andrew Little; The rise of Jacinda Ardern; The rupture of the Greens and the final whimper of Peter Dunne) has shifted from where reasoned analysis (or at least a clear link between politics, policy and politicians) was the standard to becoming very similar to that of the tabloids I so enjoy reading while waiting in the checkout line at Pak’n’Save.

We all know now how these things are will play out: there is the initial breathless coverage, then the swarm of media articles and blog posts discussing and dissecting the matter, and all while the focus of the media’s attention twists and squirms under its harsh glare and is laid bare, one detail at a time until there is nothing left to report or something new is found to focus (or feed) on.

Thus, the difference between a feud between some D-list celebutards and what passes for political coverage during an election (and often day to day politics as well) narrows to the point that you could swap out the names plus key details and the tone, content (or lack thereof) and style of the work would be next to minimal; and no one would notice if it what was happening in parliament was news or an episode of Shortland Street.

And, at times, I have been guilty of such offences and I understand why there are calls for “more discussion on policy rather than personality” but this is not the first election we have had such furore (previously it was Dirty Politics or Kim Dot Com for example) and the current dynamic of modern media in a populist election period is simply going to focus (positive or negative) on what generates attention rather than what needs attention.

And such relentless framing of politics and politicians though this tabloid lens has led to both campaign bloat and what I am calling peak scandal.

Campaign bloat, both a physical and psychological condition, was first described by Hunter S. Thompson in his classic book Fear and Loathing: on the campaign trail in 72 where he detailed the adrenal high and subsequent crash that afflicted people (mostly political junkies like me) who got too far into politics and politicians during an election campaign.

The symptoms of the bloat are detailed here but suffice it to say that like any good addiction the first hit is free and oh so sweet but it soon takes more and more of that “good stuff” to get off on and soon you are either a hard core junkie or a trashed wreck (or both). And once you are wrecked, your ability to react to or get a buzz off whatever was juicing you up is gone and you’re numb to any further “shocking” revelations which come down your news feed.

At this time, I am dangerously close to that condition. I feel my hands clenching and unclenching as I grind my teeth when I get that first sting of another twist in the saga of (insert politicians name here) before losing all interest in the whole torrid affair, because there are only so many torrid affairs one can have (and this is not my first), before reacting with indifference to the eventual fate of the situation which leads to the next step in the process: peak scandal.

Like peak oil or peak beard (or here) we have now hit peak scandal. For the public, already weary of the brainless antics of political parties and politicians, the indifference has grown to where being a politician is viewed as the same kind of career direction and lifestyle choice as that of a child sex predator and no one really cares any more (about the politician or the politics not the kids (they still care about the kids).

Peak scandal is just that, we are now at the zenith (or nadir) of the populist political cycle this election and the chickens (or Chechens or Chihuahuas or whatever) are coming home to roost as we near the moment of truth on polling day.

And when you mix campaign bloat with peak scandal you get what we have in the US (with its hyper partisan political and social situations) or Italy or Australia (with shifting political instability as the norm) as both the general public and the political junkies lose their taste for the once exotic flesh of politics and switch off to learning the skills required to participate in a democracy (those of open and reasoned debate mixed with tolerance and compromise).

And you might switch off to politics but politics will not switch off to you. Politics will read that indifference and stagnation and give you what you want in the form of places like the US or Australia where its tweets from The Don 24/7 or burkas for breakfast with Pauline Hanson.

So, to help ease back on this noxious potential outcome I am going to dedicate the last month of my political coverage to avoiding any scandal**, no matter what, and to doing my “gosh darned” best to keeping my blogging on an even keel until after polling day.

But it won’t be easy, as old (drug) habits die hard and the potential for the perpetual motion engine that is populism, to crank out tectonic and paradigm shifting events is nearing Sorcerer’s Apprentice levels of activity and with no sign of stopping.

Both you, the reader and the media, can help in these circumstances by retaining a critical edge when discussing politics and not “feed the beast”, so to speak. Don’t give in to your vicarious urge to just watch the proceedings play out and then pass moral judgement from on high or engage in “verbatim regurgitation”*** and nothing else.

Instead take your creative gushes and marry them with wit and intellect to balance out the populist energy with something that advances the discussion forwards and not down into the troll cave.

I am a supporter of the populist mood and tone of our times but I am not down with the trenchant anger and partisan futility that emerges when the elites seek to hold back needed change or when the public (often ticked off from seeing needed reform stifled by said elites) remove themselves from the debate and desire nothing more than to be spectators, or agitators, in the political process because that’s where peak scandal, tabloid politics and campaign bloat come from.

*-For the record I do think this is the work of Nationals dirty politics crew because the timing is just too good to be true despite the protestation of Paula Bennet. They are probably not in ensconced as close as they used to be to the PMs office, to ensure "plausible deniability" of course, but if this is the best they can do they then its clear that the National Party brain trust spent more than $18,000 dollars on a bunch of low grade Law school drop outs who cant even get their weasel words right. Very low rent!

**-even if Bill “what’s wrong with that man’s face Mummy?” English was to rip the flesh mask off to reveal the reptilian underneath before charging into the crowd of reporters in the press room with the sole intent of tearing the head off at least one of them before Parliament security brought him down .

**- watch all of it and you will get my point

Elections 2017: How to avoid the post-election slump

Another body was found in the halls of parliament this week when the corpse of Peter Dunne’s political career was found slumped in the corner of his plush office.

There were no marks on his body but it was clear from the masque of terror on his face that he had seen the slavering horror of FukYoo Politix and his heart had simply stopped out of the sheer fear of actually having to do some genuine political campaigning in his previously safe, niche, electorate.

And like the other recent bodies found inside parliament (that of Metreia Turei and Andrew Little) it was clear that some unknown force was stalking and killing political careers left, right and centre.

In Turei’s case she was run over by her own fetid ambitions (suspiciously found in neutral gear and with the hand brake off when parked on a steep slope) while Little was bludgeoned to death by his own low poll ratings (his mashed body was found locked in the caucus room and no one could find the key).

Then there is the body that started all this, John Key, which at the time was thought to be from natural causes but now, like all good murder mysteries, seems to have met with foul play (possibly poison slipped into his morning expresso by a “trusted” friend and confidant).

Thus, this election campaign, like all good teenage horror movies, has now entered, as we discussed a few months back, that final phase (cue the creepy synth music) as the killer is now out in the open, striking at will and the panic this has engendered in the survivors has them sweating with fear and swiveling their heads as they try to figure out where the beast will strike from next.

But this post is not about the last few weeks of this increasingly chaotic political campaign but what will happen in the days after September 23^rd because it’s clear that there are only two real options for an electoral outcome and both of them boil down to whichever way Winston Peters happens to go when Labour and National front up and try and jam his hairy, outsized foot into the political glass slipper they are carrying.

And the mechanics of that podiatry nightmare are best covered by the recent work of Chris Trotter who shows that while we can track the creature that is Winston by his spoor and territorial leavings (think the usual Winston rhetoric) it could still come down on the day to some obscure factor like how tight his pants are or what color a reporters shirt is.

What is certain is that there are only two possible political outcomes: a National Coalition government or a Labour coalition government.

And while the composition of those governments remains malleable (think Labour and NZ First with or without the Greens or National and NZ First or even National and the Greens* if Winston decides to go with Jacinda to the ball) there are only two major structures that will be constructed post-election.

The ramshackle Mc-mansion that National will build will do its best to hide the rot (as I describe in my previous post National party embiggened by cromulent election victory) or the slightly newer looking house of Labour which may start with the best intentions to restore the property to its original condition but instead turns into a The-Block style superficial makeover before they flip it on for a quick profit.

This then, is the peril of post-election politics for Kiwis this year, the election ends on September 23^rd but the next three years of our political lives start the very next day when whoever or whatever we elect will take office.

And this message was never clearer with the end of the political career of Peter Dunne as Dunne entered politics 33 years ago in 1984 with the then Lange Labour government which immediately proceeded to enact the neo-liberal reforms which brought us to where we are today.

How ironic that the deeply cynical populist anger that Dunne helped create was also what chopped him down this week, the same populist sentiment that chewed up and spat out Andrew Little, Meteria Turei and James Shaw and even John Key was born of these last 33 years.

And if we can get all Pol-Sci for a moment the dynamic that is now at play works like this.

When the majority of the voting populace is content with the current government and its policies it will maintain that government and its policies.

When the majority of the voting populace is not happy with the current government and its policies it will seek to first change the policies; then the government; then the structure of government and finally the system of state (in that order).

And in the last 33 years we have seen the voting populace first object policies like the mother of all budgets, the dismantling of the welfare state and the privatization vital public services before getting ticked off with being ignored and then deciding to remove one government for another (as in 1996 and 2005) before arriving at where we are now with the mood of both NZ and much of the rest of the world reflecting a want to change the structure of governments themselves (by removing the neo-liberal and free market ideals which have created the housing hernia, dirty water and a swelling underclass living in dire poverty) and substituting other (possibly new possibly old) ideas and theories for how we wish to organize our society.

This is why all the recent calls for having a focus on policy this election are the proverbial rearranging of deck chairs on the sinking ship. 

The last 33 years has seen a raft of policy and politicians who ignored reality, and any who dared to call for it, while crafting policy cut from a particular vein of ideology which created people like John Key as our PM; created dirty dairy farming; pumped up the housing market until it became a national hernia; threw up an open door immigration system as a way to provide cheap labour; built up a culture of poverty and beneficiary bashing while ignoring any and all indicators that something was deeply wrong with the direction that society was heading.

Nor is New Zealand the only place where this dynamic has played itself out; the US, the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Greece and may other democracies around the world have been though the crazy that we are going through now in NZ.

But here is the kicker because this election is not really about who or what we vote for, or even if we vote at all but what will those who are elected do once they get given the task of fixing the mess the last 33 years has left us.

We know that if National get back in it will be more of the same and Steven Joyce might even dust of that “final solution” policy he has had locked away in the Beehive basement for the last nine years, the one where they stop pretending that we are not a third world banana republic and where he and the rest of National decide to live and act like the plantation managers they really aspire to be while remaking NZ into something like Thailand (with its booming tourist industry, military junta, grinding poverty, mass corruption and semi lawless society) rather than a genuine social democratic state (with the rule of law, fairness and natural justice and an economic and social system that prioritizes people over profits).

Of course with Jacindamania building to a fever pitch we could end up with the Labour party bus parked up our driveway for the next three years and the scent of change fading from our nostrils as Jacinda and Labour keep the ovens rolling but with a “kinder and gentler” face to the proceedings to help sooth those liberal sensitivities which were bruised under National but unwilling to acknowledge the cognitive dissonance that it was a Labour government that unleashed the beast 33 years ago and that it will be a Labour government which will attempt to stanch the sucking chest wound that is our failing state with a Band-Aid.

Let’s be clear here, if Bill and the B team are out and we get Jacinda and Co in they will still have to “win the peace”, as it is, by actually doing something to turn back the tide of neo-liberal garbage washing up on the beaches of NZ because if they don’t there is a very clear fate waiting for governments which fail to live up to the promise they embody (be it conscious or not).

In the US populism splattered Donald Trump all over the faces of the US public and now sees him deeply unpopular and divisive; while its brought Theresa May's popularity to its knees, Brexit horror, Tory Decline and a resurgent Jeremy Corbyn to the UK; Its seen the recent Macron government popularity sink less than six months after being elected; Justin Trudeau (who unseated the uber-neo-liberal Harper government in 2016) stumble as his feel good glow begins to fade and the PC brigade start to act just as bad as Harper and his goons were; while even Australia has descended into a carnival of revolving door PMs, bat guano insanity passing as rational debate and rabid racist sentiment becoming the core theme for how Oz behaves both domestically and internationally; not to mention a murderous town mayor running the entire Philippines (complete with one of his clones campaigning for National in Auckland) and all those other wavering democracies which are failing to address the core issues they face and having powerless politicians in office.**

This is the post-election slump and this is why policy is no longer relevant because the policies that are driving NZ today (see my recent post about the three P's of politics) are tied to a system of principles, which unless changed, will see us strangers in our own country and Godzone nothing more than a slogan on a shirt sold at some roadside stall in Roturua or Queenstown.

  

NZ has ascended the scale from seeking to change policy and party to now changing the actual principles and if Labour get in and fail to grasp this fact then expect to see Jacinda become just as unpopular as Trump, Macron or Trudeau as she does nothing but minimal or incremental policy tweaks to the overpriced and undervalued society that Labour needs to fix wholesale.

Also worth remembering is that if the populace fail to change the principles the next step will be to change the system and the other words for that are ones like revolt, revolution or civil war as I have alluded to in earlier posts.

It won’t be enough for us to just vote for the brighter day and then those voted for can sit and act like a few small policy ideas will save the day; they won’t. And if the pendulum swung far to the Right in 1984 then it may have to swing just as far Left before it can be brought back to the center because while I don’t endorse NZ becoming a communist utopia I do wish to see a civil society that is not an adjunct to the market and people, not profit, as the virtues of this nation.

Given how the current election campaign has gone the remaining four weeks are sure to be just as rowdy but both we, the voter, and the politicians coveting our vote would do well to heed what we see elsewhere when voting and enacting that vote because populism won’t go away until the things that are causing it go away.

This is why so many have recently fallen to the beast and why this campaign has become so chaotic as few, if any, in NZ politics really understand the animal they are seeking to ride into office. Unlike previous electoral cycles where they could play the popularity card while on the hustings and then forget it once safely in parliament this time the beast is riding them.

Any MP or political party who seeks to harness populism to get elected best be aware of the horror of the post-election slump if they piss away all the positive energy of the populist mood by trying to keep the status quo because populism is the diametrical opposite and will brook no backpedalling.

Naturally this applies to Labour and NZ First much more than National but in the end the beast is still hungry and, as we have seen, anybody can end up between its teeth.

Finally I am open to the idea that, as it is today, democracy may need a major tune up or even to get "pimped out" to make it work but that is what revolutions are for and I don't think we are up for that yet.

Are you? 

*- Six weeks ago even I would have scoffed at this suggestion but given how crazy things have gotten this campaign, how bad the Greens have botched their election chances and how desperate Shaw has acted to get into government I would not put it past him, or Bill English to consider the most unholy of alliances post September 23^rd.

**-Of course political popularity always goes down once the honeymoon is over but this is not just the reality of government sinking in but also the public realizing that they have been duped again.

Campaign Fail: Why the Greens blew it

I am going to start this post by linking (here) to a re-post from KP that I did in April on this blog about the Greens.

So go have a read of that first before we digest exactly what caused the Greens to slump to 4% in the polls yesterday.

...Pause...

Ok, got all that, good. Now lets us proceed.

And for those thinking that I am linking old material to crow about the current situation with the Greens by saying "Look, I was right" I wish to assure the reader that, as with my long running calls on this blog to get rid of Andrew Little as way to fix the issues with Labour, my intent is less to gloat but rather to point out that the things that have caused this current crisis for the Greens are not unprecedented and have, in fact, been around for some time now.

And its been over a year since I originally wrote that post for Kiwipolitico, so what James Shaw and Co are facing today has its roots well before Metria Turei's benefit fraud furor (which was merely a trigger for the current crisis) rather than this being some sort storm that came out of no where.

So what we shall do is take snippets of what I wrote a year ago and compare them with what is happening today; starting with the recent poll slump.

What I wrote a year a ago:

Every new voter to the Greens that is merely running from the nitwit antics in Labour will run straight back if Labour shapes up and flies right (geddit?) 

It was clear, even a year a go, that much of the voter base which was swelling the Greens polling were refugees from Labour who were not happy with how things were under Andrew Little and were transferring their support to the Greens. But that if the factors which were bedeviling Labour were to change (like replacing Andrew with Jacinda) then they would go straight back.

And with Jacinda Ardern taking over they returned like a wayward pet finding its way back home after being absent for several years.

Then there is the re-branding that the Greens have undertaken since James Shaw took over which have seen them move away from their traditional issues (like the environment) to wider social issues (such as social welfare and "budget responsibility").

What I wrote a year ago:

Shaw himself is pro-market and believes that it can be reformed to be sustainable, which is a laudable sentiment for a member of the young Nats but not in a party like the Greens. These kind of ideas, Shaw’s background and the recent statements from the party about doing and end run around Labour to work with National on some issues show that the Greens of the past may soon be replaced by the “Greens” of the future

Well the "Greens of the future" arrived and not only did it cause a split within the party (with some the older environmental types, obviously put out by Shaw's wholesale importing of the Kool Kidz into the party over them) but also ticked off its potential coalition partner, Labour, by doing things like supporting National on the budget and not sticking to the terms of the MOU (they signed with with Labour) by not telling them what they were going to do in advance.

Last year:

So in dissecting the Green party at this current time it’s not the past to which I am concerned but the future and to put it simply it looks like the Greens are about to (take a deep breath and say it with me) compromise. In daily use compromise is not a bad term but in politics it almost always means abandoning your principles to reach a short term expediency at the cost of both your long term supporters and policy goals

And compromise (as well as abandon) their principles they did, which did no favors to Greens, or its core voter base who have obviously revolted given how the party is currently polling. This is also the place where Metria Turei's duplicity over benefit and electoral fraud came back to haunt the Greens by stripping away in short order the previous air of moral untouchability that had long protected the Greens like a magic cloak.

Add in the fact that Shaw was obviously clearing house behind the scenes by culling key Green party staff and the structural weaknesses were multiplied..

What I wrote a year ago:

Personality conflicts in politics are not new and party staff generally know not to contradict the leader but when key staff are either removed (as in the case of Spagnolo) or leaving in droves (as with the other three) it takes more than claims of “coincidence” to assuage the growing feeling that something is not right in the good ship Green

Shaw removed, or drove out at least four key staff members in the wake of his taking charge of the Greens and this gutting of older hands within the party obviously left it bereft of the saner minds that would never have endorsed any of the things the party has been doing recently; like its sudden lurch into social issues and instead counseled sticking to the older, slower, but also successful, formula of primary environmental concerns.

I am pretty sure that evicted Coms and policy director David Cormack (or exiled chief press secretary Leah Haines) would not have advised that Metria Turei make her benefit fraud admission, but they were obviously not around at the time that that plan was hatched and whoever had replaced them was either asleep at the wheel or dancing to Shaw's tune.

Then there is James Shaw himself, who I have never been comfortable about:

The obvious cause is new male co-leader James Shaw himself, who with his corporate background with HSBC (the money launderers bank of choice) and PriceWaterhouseCoopers (an organisation with so many scandals attached to its name I will not relate them here but encourage any who are interested to have a dig themselves) seems an extremely unusual choice for a party whose charter explicitly states “unlimited material growth is impossible” in two of its four articles.

Shaw has always presented his time working in the corporate sector as something laudable and virtuous but the fact is he was working for major corporate actors with dodgy track records and backgrounds and all the sustainability projects in the third world were never going to remove the fact that he sought to work with them rather than the usual, and more ethically sound, run of NGOs that are not as tainted as HSBC or PWC.

Then we add in these rumors which I had herd about Shaw at the time:

a) Shaw is a corporate Trojan horse (ala Don Brash in both the National and ACT coups); b) Shaw is an agent provocateur in the pay of the security services (not so astounding once you realize that it’s a known fact that the security services have had paid informants in environmental groups since the 90s; or  c) the Greens have a serious case of political blue balls and are now prepared to do anything (and I mean “anything”) to get into power.

At this time I would say that Shaw is in fact a combination of all three. His miracle rise within the party, his clear alignment away from traditional Green issues and his willingness to work with National mean that I would not be surprised if Shaw was revealed to be part of some secret nexus of corporate power and the security-services which are focused on destroying the Greens from within by having Shaw hijack the party and steer it to disaster. It would make perfect sense.

But thats not all because there was also the issue that the path Shaw was charting for the Greens was one of known dangers:

But there are a few problems with this scenario and Shaw would do well to heed the lessons of history when it comes to playing with fire. The fate of the Lib Dems in the UK, the Maori Party and NZ First should serve as warnings to any minor party leader willing to put short term expediency ahead of long term progress.

But did he listen, no he did not, and in a few short months has destroyed over 20 years of hard work by former and current party members.

And even if Shaw does not turn out to be a traitorous worm working for dark forces he will go down in NZ political history as a naive imbecile who simply did not understand that the strength of the Greens was its strict adherence to its principles and environmental line rather than trying to be like every other party in parliament.

At the time I compared Shaw and Turei to the lead characters of the Rocky Horror Picture Show:

If this is the case then James Shaw and Metiria Turei are the Brad and Janet of NZ politics while Key is Frank N Furter (with possibly Winston as Riff Raff, Andrew Little as Dr Scott and yours truly as the Narrator). 

John key is gone and its hard to imagine Bill English will ever admit his cross dressing habit but if you wanted naive dupes who got sucked in and enslaved to their lusts by a shady hucksters (as Brad and Janet were by Frank N Furter) you do not need to go any further than Shaw and Turei who seemed to not understand what was waiting for them once they decided to get into politics for real.

And from last year this was my summation of the situation:

If we discount the “coincidence” argument in favor of a more holistic approach we see that new leadership with new ideas, mass changes in key staff and indications of attempts to exit the political corner that the Greens have painted themselves into shows a party on the cusp of a major political shift, a party that is smelling the winds of change and planning to take full advantage of them.

As of today the Greens are polling at 4% because of that "shift" and James Shaw is saying they will get back to 10%, and I wish him good luck with that because I will be surprised if they even make 8% given how Labour, and Jacinda, have surged in the polls.

Shaw stripped out the party to make it in his own image and when things were good the issues were ignored for continuing the focus on Shaw's plans to get into power. But when things started going wrong all those structural weaknesses which Shaw had brought into play suddenly complicated and lead to where the Greens are now.

And to be really clear it was not the Metria Turei benefit fraud thing that did it for the Greens, it did set a clear line for Green voters but it was not what sunk her or the party.

What did sink the her and the party was the discovery that she had also committed electoral fraud, the defection/loss of two key MPs, Shaw's bungling of the matter with in the media and the rise of Jacinda Ardern (and the subsequent resurrection of Labour) which sucked all those ex-Labour voters out of the Green vote base and back to the Labour bandwagon, and in doing so exposed the Greens as weak, divided and therefor susceptible to whatever predators were circling.

But if that kind of analysis is too complex then what has happened to Shaw and the Greens can be summed up in the song Falling by Teenage Fan Club and De La Soul where the line repeated all throughout is "you played yourself".

And Shaw and the Greens have played themselves, right royally into 4% public polling.

I am going to end with this little snippet from last year and ask the reader to consider if the following statement, made then, remains true now:

But at the end of the day the Greens are still a party which is currently fighting the good fight and with an entirely justified moral stance and matching policy prescriptions. When you match up any doubts about the party with the generally disgusting and loathsome behavior of the rest of the rabble in parliament a few potential worries about their direction pale into significance.

Let me know in the comments section.

Politics is not just about policy

I read on Harry Walsh’s recent article on Stuff decrying the fact that politics in Godzone are driven by personality and not policy and was not impressed with his argument or examples and thus was this post born.

But before we delve deeper into that particular issue let’s find out what exactly “politics” is made of.

Politics, as you or I know it, in a functional democracy*, consists of three board categories that make up the various politics parties which do the “politics” stuff.

Those three areas fall under the three P’s which we will label Policy, Personality and Principles and are a holy trinity of sorts in politics in much the same way that Rationality, Chance and Emotion make up the Clausewitzian holy trinity when analyzing war.

These three aspects of politics are all separate but also connected; all are important but depending on the circumstances one can be more important than the others; and the quality and quantity of each aspect varies from political party to political party.

In a democratic system there should be a healthy interplay between the three P’s but not an absolute balance as the various flavours of democracy combined with history and culture will always create mixes unique to whatever polity where democracy has taken root.

So what are the values of the three P’s? How do they interact and why do we need all three and not just one or two of them?

Principles

First up, the biggest and broadest of the P’s; Principles.

Principles in this context relate to both a political party and its members and could be understood as the core ideas or values which are the foundations that a political party is built on.

In NZ the core principles for each of the main political parties can be summed up in a range of single words but when viewed through a political lens to give each party its colour and flavour.

National was formally the party of the farmer (thus its conservative nature) but has now moved to the party of business, bosses and “fiscal responsibility”*** while Labour was the party of the worker but has morphed over time to loose conglomeration of liberal social values as best represented by the middle class; The Greens used to be about the environment but have recently started to emphasise issues of social justice; NZ First is nationalistic but with populist elements (Winston); ACT is a party which masquerades as libertarian but is in reality a vehicle for wealthy individuals and their concerns (tax cuts and deregulation); while The Maori party is technically race based but has become captured by tribal elites.

Voters, when deciding which party they identify with, often choose a party whose principles most align with their own; hence why ACT polls well in wealthy Epsom but might not do so well in less wealthy Otara or why NZ unions have a stake in Labour but not National

Principles can, and do, morph over time but as they do so do the various people and groups that associate with them and this is why it’s important to truly know what values and ideas lie behind a party and not just what is written in its constitution document.

A recent example of this is the Greens rejecting two of their four founding principles in their charter (the ones explicitly saying “unlimited material growth is unsustainable”) so they could sign the Budget Responsibility Rules document with Labour. This shows the Greens rejecting one set of principles to move to another and they will probably have to change their name soon or revise their charter given this shift.

Without principles political parties would struggle to differentiate themselves without appealing to either just personality or utilitarian policy and would certainly not be democratic in nature (being that the idea of democracy should sit above all other principles a party has).

Principles also drive policy and not the other way around. Principles are the place from which all policy springs in a democracy; values such as justice, equality and the rule of law are the basis of all democracies and without them nations could never achieve anything more than the illusion of democracy.

Policy

Next there is the politics at the coal face of reality; Policy.

Policy is what governments spend much of their time creating and enacting and, as noted above, the governing principles of any particular democratic government shape the policy it decides to pursue.

Policy does not grow in isolation and Principle is the seed from which almost all policy springs. Policy is the final step in enacting the “peoples will” as directed via the “people’s representatives” which starts with principles.

Any political party that subjugates itself to policy over principle is not democratic, as such a policy would not be enacted “for the people” but for the policy maker (sometimes known as a technocrat) or at best for what the policy maker thinks the “public” wants.

Policy also comes in the form of “Big P” policy which are the core policies of any particular party that form its manifesto or charter and “small P” policy which is the day to day policy making of government (ie that of select committee) which few in the public care about until it affects them directly or becomes “big P” policy.

It is true that Policy can stir debate within the body politic (look at the 1080 Party) but only the most contentious and divisive policies can do that and since democratic politics under MMP requires a high degree of co-operation and compromise, few policies will remain contentious for long if they have a negative impact on the greater populace.

Personality

Finally there is the wild card of politics; Personality.

Personality is the link between the blue sky ideals of Principles and the day to day reality of Policy. It’s the political representatives of the political parties themselves and they are the public face of any political party, it Principles and its Policy.

Of course not all politicians have personality, some are dull as dishwater or seat warming deadwoods who do nothing but toe the party line and collect their pay, saying nothing and doing little during their tenure in parliament.

But even the most boring MP on earth is still the link between the voter and the government: between the principle that they are voting for and seeing those principles brought to life as policy.

But when you do get a politician with Personality, watch out! Charismatic politicians are few and far between and when one with the gift of the gab or the common touch gets going they can be powerful arbiters of a party views and beliefs.

As much as I loathed John Key, and all he stood for, it was always clear that he had a genuine connection with voters (something that Bill English and the rest of the National party does not have) and was a real person. It also helped that he could speak well and sounded like he was doing it all off the cuff rather than via some prepared speech.

His popularity was genuinely reflected in both his own high polling and the popularity of his party and they lasted for the duration of his time as PM, not just as a blip on a poll chart.

But there is one time where Personality is a perquisite for participation in politics and that is when it comes to who is going to lead a political party.

John Key might have had “it” but Andrew Little did not. Little was clearly an intelligent man who believed in the values of Labour but he had no real personality and as such all that he said and did was tainted with his lack of character which is fine for some party backbencher who does not have to front 24/7 but it’s the wrong stuff for what is essentially the party spokesperson.

And if we can get Machiavellian for just a moment it’s not that John Key was an actual authentic person but that he was able to project an authentic persona and as such resonated with voters as being “genuine” which, in politics, media or acting, is just as good as being genuine.

Of course Personality does have its dark side in that of ego and dictatorial behaviours (think Robert Muldoon in his final years as PM). And while it’s natural among individuals in a dictatorship or an Oligarchy, even in democracy it can raise its ugly head in the form of leaders who channel their personal popularity for little more than personal gain; and in NZ politics nobody is clearer example of this than Winston Peters.

Winston is clearly a charismatic individual which is why he was the rock star of the political establishment in the late 80s and early 90s.

Unfortunately along the way Winston switched from being genuinely popular to simply doing what all aging rock stars do, which is playing the “hits” over and over again and no longer being a genuine personality but getting by on the nostalgic cliché of what his personality once was. The Winston peters we see today is a shadow of what he was in his prime in the 90s.

And this is why personality is important; personality can drive politics in a way that Policy and Principle can rarely do, and in a media age, such things have a force multiplying effect on politics as a popular politician can get elected in a democracy, sell an unpopular policy and put out (or at least damp down) the fires of dissent or scandal where an unpopular Politician can do none of those things and will probably just make things worse (think the recent performances of Bill English and Andrew Little vs John Key and Jacinda Ardern).

So is personality dominating policy in NZ politics?

So now that we know what the three P’s are what about Mr Walsh’s idea that politics in NZ is dominated by personality? Is this true and even if it is true is it the issue he makes it out to be?

The quick answer is that personality is not dominating policy but that policy and personality react differently with the public in NZ.

Usually Kiwis as a whole do not want to talk about Policy in any shape or form, policy debates are rarely a staple of NZ politics when compared to the depth and focus the average Kiwi will bring to sports, Shortland Street or the property market.

For example the crisis of the Housing Hernia has rarely been discussed in NZ at the level of Policy but rather of bubbles, foreign speculators, real-estate agents, land banking or the spectre of homeless Kiwi families with nary a look at what policy (or policies) helped create (or perpetuate) such a state of affairs until the situation was well out of hand.

This is, in part, because there is no one policy that created the housing hernia but also because the Kiwi attitude towards government is that of a parent towards a paid baby sitter as they head out for a night on the town.

We elect our representatives to do a job and we usually don’t want to know all the silly details as long as the baby is asleep by the time we get home. This is why NZ politics often sees three-term governments in power as its only by the third term that the populace gets home (or wakes up) and decides that the current sitter is giving the child too much sugar and letting them stay up way too late.

Policy in NZ remains an esoteric place that few ever really visit and often it is on the smaller blogs or buried in a news article somewhere where any real policy discussion is had.

Then there is the fact that in a time of uncertainty and populist politics it’s only natural that Personality (be it John Key or Jacinda Ardern) take centre stage at election time because these are the faces that will get people out to vote a lot more than any particular piece of policy will.

So when I read an article by Harry Walsh moaning about why personality is king and lamenting for some mythical time when NZ talked only about policy I see just a hint of sour grapes and a political nostalgia for a time that has probably never existed.

I also take issue with his claim that if Policy is not brought to the fore then we “dilute our individual power to influence government” which sounds very noble but makes no sense as what influence Kiwis do wield over their government is almost always collective and enacted through the political parties (and their principles) they elect and not by individual protest or petition***.

And if I was to be really critical I would say that Harry Walsh is just a bit miffed by the recent rise of Jacinda Ardern and is expressing that via his article on Stuff because after eighteen years of John Key and Helen Clark (both highly popular leaders) it seems a bit late now to bemoan why NZ has a preference for a Personality over Policy when the last 30 years of NZ politics has been governments often ignoring genuine policy issues (and any related petitions, protests or referendums) and often being ruled by strong and publicly popular PMs.

Perhaps when the boiling waters of populism and middle ground politics recede we may see policy coming to the fore or taking a greater place in the debate but at this time with politics in NZ in flux it’s unlikely that the day to day running of a nation (policy) is going to take precedent over the much more important argument about what principles do we want our society run by.

Right now what is driving much of the populism around the world is the long coming reaction to 30 years of free market politics and deregulation under Neo-Liberalism and the debate about whether those principles are best for our democracy trumps any desire to see the “trains run on time”.

Unfortunately populism also provides for any individual, with an ounce of charisma, a boost to their own position, and that of their party, if they manage to tap into that revolutionary mood so there is a natural synergy between a political firebrand and a mood in the public for change.

So let’s forget about Policy not being the big thing because at this time as it’s just shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic while the real discussion should be about how to fix the damage, get safely off the boat and how we hit the damn iceberg in the first place.

*-And for the time being let’s assume that we do live in a functional democracy

**-At least as they would define it

***- Unless your “petition” is a $20,000 donation to the party of your choice 

Elections 2017: A week is a long time in politics, specially when its in an election campaign.

So what to make of the last seven days in NZ politics.

Labour goes up

Well for a first thing, I think that with the rise of Jacinda Ardern, and the end of Andrew Little, the last fragments of the political stasis that John Key had brought to NZ politics with his hideously high popularity and winning polling has finally been brushed away.

Its taken almost nine months since Key moved out of his office in Bowen House but when the political constipation that was Andrew Little was finally flushed by the sparky laxative that was Jacinda Ardern the last of the grim, grey glacial inaction that was clogging the pipes of the Labour Party seems to be gone.

Ardern could have tripped and stumbled in her first seven days, and she might do so between now and election day, but Ardern, for a first week debut, has done amazingly well and it shows.

Sure there is no polling to back things up at this point but there are a lot of other measures which have indicated that Ardern has hit a sweet spot with the public.

The first is that right off the bat the Maori party have offered her and Labour an olive branch almost as soon as Ardern got the job, the same day in fact, and I think that reflects not only the bad relationship Andrew Little seemed to have with the Maori Party but also that Tuku Morgans political plan to bring Maori voter numbers up in the Maori seats may not have reaped as many dividends as he, and the party had hoped (given that six out of the seven seats are currently in the hands of Labour) so why not try and cut a deal with the new supremo at Labour.

The next is the more subtle but unmistakably positive media coverage Jacinda has gotten. And I don't just mean in the normal political press or the papers and TV but also in women's magazines with her face gracing at least one cover this week and and plenty of other articles elsewhere showing an unmistakable rise in her public profile and quick identification with her being the leader of Labour.

Then there is Jacindas reaction to improbably stupid question in the media about her plans to have children and how she handled that showed that she can think on her feet. She could have batted them away but instead she made a club out of the questions and beat Mark Richardson about the head with it in a manner that got her international coverage and showed that she can deal with dingbats in the media far better than Little ever could.

Also showing that she can play with the big boys is her firm, but fair, manner, in which she brought newly minted deputy Kelvin Davis into line for his hyperbolic descriptions of the National Party*. She could have backed him, she could have endorsed it but instead she showed what kind of firm hand she has on things as she politely censured him and then decreed that a "positive focus" on the campaign was a the right way to go.

And with all the positive talk, sudden surge in donations and support coming into the party now its painfully obvious to all that Little was a dead duck for the party fortunes while Jacinda is the enthralling swan who will take them all the way to the electoral ball.

Finally while its clear that Ardern has things going her way at the moment, a battlefield promotion does not mean there are not other pretenders for the throne out there; but for now, and at least until after polling day, she will be the person giving the orders and calling the shots and if she means to go on as she has started then things are looking up for Labour.

The Greens meet political reality

A week ago the Greens seemed to be on the up with a jump to 15% in the polls though having snatched some of the populist vibe via Meteria Turei's benefit fraud admission.

Unfortunately I don't think the Greens thought their plan all the way through as further digging by those investigating her benefit history also then uncovered what looks like voter fraud with Turei providing false information about where she was registered to vote.

And at that point all that good work in starting the debate about how beneficiaries are treated in this country (and its a debate that needs to be had given how wealth and privileged do lead to some being above the law in NZ) has been eliminated by the further negative revelations from her past, and as as of today, seen Turei has quit as Greens co-leader.

In seven days she has gone from virtuous saint to now blocked from being a minister (by Jacinda Ardern no less) in any Left leaning government and facing a split over it in her own party to being on her way out the political backdoor.

But that alone has been just one of the speed bumps on the road to September 23rd for the Greens with MPs Kennedy Graham and David Clendon deciding to spit the dummy, and expose a rather deep ideological schism in the party to rival anything that Labour might have, by quitting in a very public manner (which I am calling the Kool Kidz vs the Old Krusties) and exposing further internal weakness just when Labour looked to be on the ropes.

But there is plenty of blame to go round because James Shaw got chopped up, like a ripe pineapple, live on RNZ, by Guyon Espiner when he could not answer a simple question of political expediency around the issue and sounded just like any other scumbag politician when caught in a lie and Espiner has made sure that the sting of coming down off the moral high ground, and encountering political reality will last for a very long time.

And this is the reality of politics that the Greens have avoided for so long, by being the morally superior party, and, as Phillip Mathews recent editorial started out by saying, it could not have happened to a "nicer party" was just a hair short of saying "welcome to politics, bi**ches!"

And I would have to agree because it has been a long time coming, and James Shaw's plan of beating Labour at its own game, by moving away from just environmental issues to greater social concerns, has been scuppered by the rise of Jacinda and the duplicity of Meteria Turei.

So it seems that its not just National that was worried about Jacinda Ardern and making hay of the ineptitude of Andrew Little but also the Greens who have seen a slow but steady leakage of pissed off Labour voters swell their ranks for nearly a year but now the glove is on the other foot and the NZ political press smells blood and its fair to say that the Greens will be reeling from the latest damage to their once pristine image.

To be fair, Shaw and Co almost got away with it but in the end Labour still had some basic political instincts remaining intact to sense the trap and pull out the last minute which has left the Greens violently shoved back into the political corner they have long inhabited, by an invigorated Labour and Jacinda Ardern.

My own take on this is to offer up a rather crude, but very sage, military saying as advice to Shaw, Turei and all those bright eyed little sports in the party that thought that all it would take to make it big time in politics was a two page fashion spread in a magazine and somehow failed to realize that as soon as they came down off the moral high ground they would get their feet muddy; and that advice is "never suck a dead mans d**k!"**

I wonder what they will make of that?

National, still in stasis.

And if we can hold with the theme of fellating a corpse (as disgusting as it is) for just a moment we come to the National Party who might as well be doing just that given how they are running their campaign at the moment.

Of course the dead man in question is not quite dead , but in sense that he is no longer with the Party, is, of course, their former dark lord and master; John Key.

Every thing English and Co has been (or not been) doing for the last few months is nothing but cautious echoes of the 2014, or even the 2011, campaigns minus the one key (pun intended) ingredient that saw them sweep in to victory those times and boy does it show.

Sure they are also suffering third-term-itis but that only a small part of the story as National has been in a holding pattern since John left in December last year.

National don't have any tricks left in their bag and it was only the hideous ineptitude of Andrew Little that was keeping them looking credible and now with that one bugaboo gone and Labour suddenly swinging back into action the icy stasis of the last nine years of John Key are really showing as Bill and the rest of the B Team have no credible answers to any question that raises it head.

They always knew that Jacinda was a threat and as such have been rather muted in the last seven days as she wrangled Labour away from the rocks of doom that Andrew Little was grimly locked on course for and aimed the leaky ship of Labour for the nearest safe harbour.

And National can do nothing but watch at this time as all the cards are against them and I don't think polling is going to be as reliable as we might wish in the last two months as the populist sentiment that the Greens let out of the bag, and now Jacinda (and a super thankful Labour) have jumped on, is starting to catch fire elsewhere.

And lets be real clear here that the key ingredient of the populist mood in NZ and around the world is change, and that is the one thing National cant sell to the public.

For Bill and the sacks of grade-Z monkey meat which make up the current National lineup there are no new faces, no new policies in the works and just more roll outs of the same tired fixes for problems they have helped to create and nurture and more of the horrid, bloated, visages which scare children (and apparently Kelvin Davis) nightly on TV.

And even the small changes they have made, like the recent immigration announcements in April for tightening up visas and work conditions have been yanked back, with all the speed of a well trained dog reacting to the snap of the whip, when the Businesses realized that their supply of cheap labor was going to be cut off and raised a stink.

So in the last week Bill English has simply made a few minor comments and acted like the stunned mullet that he is while all the momentum shifts away from them.

National has been in a holding action for the last nine months and it looked like with  their weathering of Tod Barclay scandal (of which there is still more to come with English saying he has deleted important texts of his phone) had given them enough to make it though the last two months.

But I don't think that will still be the mood in the lower levels of the Beehive anymore, where National has its shrine of skulls, that Bill prays at, nightly, in the fervent hope that he will get to PM and not again be the man that pissed it all away.

Actually speaking of pee, I think that when it was announced that Andrew was out and Jacinda was in, Bill probably peed himself just a little as his mind instinctively jumped, as all victims do when faced with reliving their trauma again, back to early 2000s and National getting beaten at the polls by Helen Clarke and Labour.

A week is a long time in politics

Its a tried and tested saying and it has been shown this week in such sudden changes in  fortune for Labour and the Greens but also conversely for the stuck in the mud attitude of National who makes weeks look like years when you consider how they respond to anything these days.

The key take away for a anyone interested in what all this means for polling day is that the populist fire that Metria Turei and the Greens sparked has burnt them badly but like a fire that clears out the dead wood and old growth in a forest, so new things can sprout upwards, it has kicked Labour back into gear (with the rise of Jacinda) and left National acting like a spooked burn victim going on a blind date with a raging pyromaniac.

So while I was bemoaning the stupidity of the Greens a few weeks back and despondent at Labour under Little I can see that even I was stuck in the groove of the John Key stasis which is now fully washed away and we are now left with having to really reconsider how this election could play out.

And not a moment too soon.


*-To be fair to Davis I positively loved his description of the goons in National but while its ok for an medicated  nutter like myself to get away with them less so for fresh faced Deputy PM.
**-Because nothing good will come from it. Sorry, its crude but true.

Elections 2017: Political Billboards - The good, the bad BUT mostly the fugly!

For many people in NZ the first real sign that there is an election campaign going on is when the election billboards go up.

Like a form of political graffiti or territorial pissing they appear on the side of the roads, near major intersections and roundabouts across major cities and out in the countryside to remind people that their local MP may soon be unemployed.

Of course these brightly colored signs serve other purposes, of which one is to provide employment to the political billboard industry and another is to make the local candidate feel good about themselves.

And that's all political billboards are really good for because one of the the first things any Pol Sci 101 student learns when the study gets to election campaigns is how pointless these things are. Its generally accepted that they have no real value in an election campaign.

I have distinct memories of sitting in a lecture, in what was a NZ and US election year, listening to a well paid political consultant, who had come in as a guest speaker, talk about how to run an election campaign and what not to do as a candidate.

And their words stick with me now, as they did then, because they summed it all up in two simple maxims that were Be authentic and don't waste your money on billboards.

And the reasons for the billboard rule is numerous but the best way to explain it is though the language of advertising.

In advertising, targeting ones product at ones audience is a basic principle and such a thing is best done by finding the  best medium to reach that target audience.

So the questions then is who thinks that a large, garishly colored billboard, with an MP's gormless face on it is the best way to a) reach that sweet target market of potential voters and b) convince any of those potential voters to actually vote for you?

The correct answers for both should be "are you out of your mind, I have better ways to waste my election campaign funds*"

However its not often the answer that MP or political parties seem to give**.

Its scatter-gun advertising at its worst with the potential to raise vaguely one personal profile and the party's brand image slightly but with no room for any substantive message or any genuine appeal to voters.

Think about it: not only is your political billboard and three (or four if your really pushing the envelope) word message competing with every other political billboard out there but also with every other billboard and piece of advertising in the same space or area.

Also, consider, in your daily travels or commute, how many signs, billboards and other forms of advertising you pass and subconsciously block out? You probably don't even notice how many billboards and signs you pass.

In fact, next time you are moving around town take the time to consciously count how many small signs are out there on the sides of the roads and streets in New Zealand, probably a lot more than you think. Also consider how many you knew were there before you deliberately started noticing them.

There are signs for (and this is not counting actual normal advertising on the road but just the kind of signs one sees on fence which are likely to compete directly with political billboards) bridal shows, hypnotists, school fairs, garage sales, theater groups, local pubs and shops, fencing contractors, dog washes and all kids of activity and business one can image; and they all have more words, a more focused message and probably much more relevance to you, driving, walking or busing past, than whatever political candidate X and party Y has to say.

And on top of that there are the even larger political meta factors to consider such as if your candidate is either a guaranteed win or a hopeless loss, why spend precious campaign budget on a dead skunk way of advertising at all given its limited effect?

The answer to trying to connect with potential voters is not through a billboard but more targeted and direct means such as pamphlets, letter drops, public meetings, sky writing, going door to door or even just driving round the neighborhood, blues brothers style, shouting out your name and message through a  public address system.

And that raises other issues for these useless hunks of corrugated cardboard in that how much mojo do you think your dead eyed face staring out at the world is going to do to offset the already poor reputation both you, your party and politicians in general have among the public?

Is a photo of you on a billboard with your soulless party leader going to do anything to offset all the bad publicity you and they have generated over the last three years from your antics in Parliament?

The answer to this is obvious and the rate at which political billboards "edited", defaced, punk'd or just plain destroyed should be enough to give readers an idea of how good these things are at inspiring people to vote for any politician.

Finally there is the fact that your billboard itself might inadvertently generate its own media controversy like when politicians squabble over potential wall space or have to take it down or modify their message.

Of course there is also the use of digital and social media as a campaign tool but NZ is not a sophisticated democracy and as such these areas are not fully explored or understood yet.

And to help ram these points home I spent part of last week driving around Christchurch looking for and taking photos of various party billboards to analyze like some sort of demented political Pokemon collector, Ugh!

So in no particular order, except in which I took them, please find my take on what will be trying to worm its way into your subconscious this election.

You can also decide if my own party slogans are any better than the party's actual ones.

I did try to find a NZ First billboard but as much as I drove round I never saw any so they escape for now but if anyone sends me a photo of a current NZ First billboard I will add it here.

Labour - Oh the Irony

Its worth noting that this photo was taken the day before Little announced his resignation and that its been removed now as Jacinda has rapidly stamped her mark on the party by getting new billboards done.

The problems with this billboard are many but the fact that the party has now spent a lot of money erasing little from history with its new billboards, new slogan and new faces shows that this will be come a rare collectors item for anyone who would want this monstrosity.

First up the color; not one BUT two tones of blood red and a picture of Little and Ardern dressed mostly in black superimposed over it which makes them look like a pair of vampires come to your door to suck out your life force if given a chance.

There is also the issue of the slogan as there was nothing "fresh" about having Andrew Little anywhere near the party leadership. If they were honest it would have said "the same crap as always!"

Labour's new slogan, soon to be appearing, on billboards is "lets do this" which immediately brought this to mind when I herd it.

Yes that's right, Jacinda may have accidentally come up with the best campaign slogan of the lot because unlike the other awful offerings (see below) this one at least implies some energy and action (if also a good amount of steroid abuse).

Finally there is the glaring issue of Jacindas teeth. Little is flashing just the right amount of tooth to not look like a add for toothpaste but Jacinda is firing off a dental broadside like she has just found out that she has absolutely no cavities after a weekend of drinking endless sugary cokes and smoking meth and is not afraid to prove it.

A less horsey picture of her would have been just as effective.

The person that comes best out of this picture is Jacinda's dentist.

The Greens - Fine Young Conservatives!

As someone who has voted Green in the past this picture frightened and confused me.

Firstly because Shaw and Turei look like young National candidates more than Green MPs as they are both wearing sombre blue (traditionally the color of National) business attire and because the actual color green is highly minimized in this picture.

Its either blurred in the background or in green so dark to be almost black so on the use of a core color to build even simple brand awareness this billboard fails miserably.

At least neither of them are showing any teeth but when you do the old trick of covering the mouth and looking only at the eyes only to see what kind of real emotions are being displayed you get a sense of smugness emanating from both co-leaders.

Its the kind of smug of people who think they are in control of their destiny, who are on the right (or should that be Right) side of history and who are going to "win big" this election.

Also the slogan, "Great together", means absolutely nothing unless again the Greens are subliminally trying to tell Bill English that they are happy to work with him because otherwise what exactly is "great" about the current Green/Labour arrangement together?***.

Its just a two word jumble that produces no real message and mushes up the mind of anyone reading it without further context.

Whats for sure is that this photo was taken prior to Turei's benefit or vote fraud admissions and I wonder if the Greens have realized that taking a principled stance only works when your actions remain principled.

If I was to read anything subliminal into from this picture is that the Greens don't really want to be green they want to be in government and if that means doing a deal with the devil (the oh so blue National party) then so be it.

Vote for at your own risk.   

Eagle eyed readers might have also noticed this this billboard is already on the ground. That's how I found it and photographed it. I don't know if it had been pulled down or just fallen down.

TOP - The mask behind the man

I had been looking at the face of Gareth Morgan, staring down at me from immense billboards like Big Brother, for some time now and something about his face was bothering me.

Something about the high cheekbones, large nose, mustache and the way the black and white photography gave him dead eyes was not sitting right and it was only when I was recently in Auckland and the evening sun caught the billboard in a certain way did I realize what I was looking at and I nearly peed myself.

Look at it a certain way and that billboard makes Morgan look like the main character V from V for Vendetta which sounds crazy until you think about a few key points.

a) Morgan announced the creation of the political party TOP on Guy Fawkes day (November 5th 2016);
b) the titular character in V for Vendetta wears a Guy Fawks mask and announced his presence to the world on Guy Fawkes day also;
c) These masks are now popular items among the online and social protest group Anonymous.

It seems unlikely that Morgan is ignorant of this Film (or even the comic book form which it sprung), the obvious connotations such connections have for anyone who is clever enough to make such them and what both the implications of starting a political party with such connotations actually means for politics as a whole.

Morgan himself has not quite been shy about things as he compared himself to Donald Trump, because of his anti-establishment approach, on the day he announced TOP but he forgot to mention this little bit of subliminal manipulation his billboard has been doing to myself (and now you too as once its seen it cannot be unseen) because if the Big Brother face on a billboard was creepy enough then Morgans ginormous face morphing between himself, Big B, the man called V and then Anonymous as you gaze at it is terrifying.

Who knows what "Care, Think, Vote" actually means   but I am probably going to need one of those pairs of "special sunglasses" like in They Live to see what the real message of TOP's billboard is.

Creepy, very creepy.

National - On Dead Ground

There was something about National's billboard being all there alone on a piece of waste ground in central Christchurch that immediately made me think of the following lines from TS Elliot's The Waste Land:

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow

Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,

And the dry stone no sound of water.

What an apt description for both the bungled rebuild in Christchurch but also the National Party because despite the gloss of the rebuild in the central city and the grandiose plans to bring the "business back" there has never been any real recognition of the devastation wrought on the people of this city by the inept bungling of the rebuild, of the horror of fighting with insurance companies that afflicted many and the greed and corruption that lead to CERA having to be closed down to hide the evidence and Gerry Brownlee being moved out of the Rebuild portfolio prior to the election lest he do more damage to Nationals election chances.

So Bill and Nicky grinning out at us from a blasted piece of earth is entirely appropriate and sums up National so well that why bother with a slogan when that says it all.

One thing is notice able though and that's the "toothy" factor again showing its head (or should I say teeth) as its clear that the photographers instructions on the day of the shoot was "more teeth please" as while Wagner is not on par with Ardern (who just seems to be dentally well endowed) she sure seems to be trying.

In fact I would almost say that those teeth are digitally enhanced as they just don't look real, did Colgate Toothpaste sponsor this billboard?

Still its nice to see National not bothering to try and change the formula from when John Key was running the show by having the old "candidate with the leader" style billboards all about town because Bill English is entirely just as popular and recognizable as John Key was.

Perhaps National is hoping potential voters wont notice and just assume it still is John Key running the show.

If National had any brains they would have just put up the same billboards from the 2014 campaign (complete with JKs grinning face) and be done with it and saving its campaign money for better things*4.

If this billboard has a message to voters its the actual land its situated on.

A waste land!

ACT - Pissing into the wind!

Look at this, just look at it! I was so amazed that I actually found one of these that I almost crashed into the back of another car in my haste to make sure I was not hallucinating.

Whats worse is that the bold yellow that ACT normally uses for its branding had faded on this billboard when I got to it and it was more like custard, puss or even a bold piss yellow colored when I took the photo which are definitely not the kind of things you want popping into your potential candidates head when they think about your party.

But it does not stop there as if you thought some of the faces on other billboards were bad then Seymour looks like he has just been asked to leave a restaurant for some public indiscretion and has wandered outside to find a camera aimed at him.

He has a smile on his face but its curled up the way a piece of bread curls as it goes moldy and by doing the cover the mouth test we can see eyes desperately pleading with us to vote for them but knows the reality will be the opposite.

Seymour is the unwanted pet in the political pet store window, you know the one, that mangy runt of the litter that would die if left alone in the wild or be eaten by its siblings but is stuck with its ugly snout pressed up against the glass desperately trying to get someone, anyone, to take it home.

Alas it will never come to be as sooner or later the store will tire of the scabby mutt that does nothing but eat food, crap in the corner and scare the kids when the walk past and take it out back for the "big sleep".

Finally, as if a piss yellow sign with a man trying not to look dodgy or desperate fronting an obscure minor party you probably did not know still existed was not enough there is that three word abortion of a slogan to add to the confusion.

What does "own your future" mean to anyone? Its just as likely that passers by will see it as an endorsement for ACT as for some group of golden shower fetishists.

Summary

So long story short, election billboards are visual pollution and nothing more and the candidates would be better served by simply driving round and handing out free money while shouting their name at passers by.

At least the damn things will be down by election day.


*-like on hookers and cocaine!
**-Or we should be able to note a measurable increase in the level of cocaine and hookers come election time
***- Ask Andrew Little
*4-see "*"