Oh Snap, guess who the new MP for Epsom is?

It does not take a psychic with a crystal ball to see where today’s announcement of the rebirth of The Opportunities Party (TOP) under new leader Geoff Simmons is going to lead for both TOP and ACT.

And I could easily see the voters of Epsom tossing aside one three letter acronym political party in order to elect another and so can Simon Bridges who has said he is “not not open to doing a deal with Simmons”*.

The reason Bridges had to qualify this statement with a double negative probably has to do with not wanting to send David Seymour screaming out the window of his Bowen House office to splatter all over Lambton Quay like human jam, well at least not yet, but if Seymour has not got an icy cold feeling in his stomach it is only because he has not heard the news.

Its simple math folks, Epsom is not voting for ACT because it likes ACT, it’s been voting for ACT because it wants National in power. So, as National has been gifting Epsom to ACT all these years, when it comes to converting percentages into seats in the house or shares of the vote TOPs 2.4% take from the 2017 general election seems like a much better chance of swinging things in a tight race compared to ACTs 0.5%.

And Simmons is being pragmatic about all this indicating that TOP would be “willing to work with everyone” which is less of an ideological pedigree than ACTs economically pure final solution for anyone who is not very rich but that’s neither here nor there when it’s really National that’s calling that shots in Epsom as no one really believes (probably not even Seymour) that Epsom is some sort of politically kinky electorate that gets its freak on for ACTs political program.

And Simmons twitter feed indicates he knows how serious this move is (in replacing Gareth Morgan as the face of the party) by using the old poker term that he  "all in” and noting its “career suicide for an economist”, which is obviously referring to the fact that economists are not seen as congenital liars while politicians are.

ACT has survived for the last few elections only because there was no other alternate party for such a seat as Epsom to be given to and that is due to National colonizing almost all the space on the Right side of the political spectrum thus enforcing its shotgun marriage to David Seymour and squeezing Epsom into the political ghetto its currently inhabits.

With another more popular contender for the seat I’m pretty sure that with Nationals prompting and Simmons trimming his hair they ("they" being the voters of Epsom) could easily elect him should they so desire.

Detractors would note that Simmons ran in the Mt Albert by-election in 2017 and only got third place with 4.6% behind Jacinda Ardern’s 76% but that’s just the point; against Jacinda, who was then riding the rising curl of what was soon to be Jacindamania, he was never going to win but he still polled!

And lest I labor the point too much, David Seymour is NOT Jacinda Ardern(sic) and Geoff Simmons with his economic background** and TOPs pragmatic policy base could just as easily advocate for Epsom as could Seymour.

And with Seymour now desperately grasping at any harebrained scheme or idea to revive ACT (and his own employment prospects) all Simmons has to do to win is not appear in public (or TV) wearing spandex, not utter anything too stupid and avoid any political ideology that advocates an economic death march for 95% of a countries populace (pro tip: getting Morgans face immediately off any TOP promotional material, if not done so already, would also really help things). How hard could it be?

The key point here is that the current coalition of Labour, The Greens and NZ First have functioned as a government and all three have more of an incentive (or political inclination) to stay away from National (especially given the fate of The Maori Party and United Future in coalition with National) while TOP under Simmons (ie not under egomaniac Gareth Morgan) could possibly see the potential of working with National to get some of its own “pragmatic” policy enacted (while not getting too close) and to do that it either needs to hit the magic 5% threshold for the general vote of get an electorate seat .

And we know from past runs by parties at the 5% threshold (think the Conservatives, ACT, Maori and United Future) that such a number is a lot harder than it looks and 4.9% won’t cut it so it’s easy to see TOP opting for an easier (and far more realistic) solution of a gift seat like Epsom than trying to grind it out in trying to win a genuinely held seat or desperately campaigning to get over the magic number nationwide.

Of course we are still two years away from an election, and Simmons and TOP might have their own ideas but if this is not writing on the wall for ACT I will happily stand drinks for any who will take those odds***.

*-Bridges also managed to get in the rather catty comment that TOP could split the Green vote by noting the “divide between the protesters and those who are realistic” which shows exactly what he really thinks.

**-And possibly his background in Improve theater 

**-subject only to my then poverty level.