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.

Post election fallout contaminates TOP, the Maori Party and National

File this under “what were they thinking!?”

The last few weeks has seen a number of activities which could be accurately described as “post-election fallout” as the particular “coalition oriented reality” that the 2017 September general election has imposed on the denizens of New Zealand’s political ecosystem (that of Labour, NZ First and the Greens as government) makes itself felt.

And in this case the fallout is coming from what could be politely termed as the three “losers” of the election, that being TOP, The Maori Party and National*. Further two of these cases can be seen as the direct result of bad decision making regarding a parties particular electoral strategy prior to the election while the third (in this case National) can be seen as laying the foundation for a similar type of catastrophe if ever implemented.

And as I am back from my blogging sabbatical lets indulge in a jolly game of seeing which of these three dumpster fire, train wrecks stacks up as the worse and how it came about.

TOP tops itself

First up is the Gareth Morgan vanity project more commonly known as The Opportunity Party (TOP).

 In the two months prior to the election I researched and wrote a whole 2000 word post on TOP which went in the dead end file because no matter how I spun it, the phrase “rich man playing at politics” kept repeating itself and there was really little else to say about Morgan treading down the same path as Kim Dotcom and “Creepy” Colin Craig, all of who did little more than spray round blobs of their wealth to purchase political media which had little more content on it than their respectively gormless faces.

Therefore it was not surprising to read last week that Morgan pulled the plug on TOP by resigning from the party, along with other senior members, as the odds of Morgan hauling his political carcass over the 5% threshold became starkly clear round about June when TOP had been in operation for six months and had little to show for it except Morgan looking down on people from billboards (and that metaphor can’t be labored enough) like a baby-boomer version of Big Brother from 1984.

And I will happily go on record in saying that my prediction that TOP would bring some “excitement” to the election campaign was way off the mark as in making said prediction I had anticipated that Morgan would not fall into the same trap as Craig and Dotcom had and actually run a political campaign seeking to worm his way into the voters’ minds with some clever and relevant means to tap into the fumes of discord that were rising from the political morass that FukYoo politics had created in NZ.

But I was wrong and to save space in this post I will sum up Moragn, and the approximately two million dollars he spent on the party and campaigning, as coming up with little more than his face on billboards, one failed legal challenge and the lingering stench in the publics mind that if elected his first act in parliament would be to enact some sort of rabid PC jihad on all felines in Aotearoa**.

Morgan talked big when he launched TOP in November 2016 and had some nice policy ideas buried away in the background but for all his comparison to Donald Trump, Morgan failed to live up to his hype, as at least Trump got elected, and all Morgan could do was flail around and squabble with party members, politicians and the public via twitter.

The key failing of this absurdly quixotic*** quest were simply Morgan deciding that he was to be the face of the party (which was the most obvious flag that this was little more than a vanity project for Morgan’s brittle ego) and not spending enough money to get ones political brand out in an already saturated marketplace (because two million dollars does not buy as much brand awareness as one might expect when you’re spending it all on creepy billboards and torpedoing your own polling by acting like a douche).

If I had the money to enter politics I might consider a run at parliament but the simple fact is I do not have the doubloons to buy myself a political party or indulge in the clearly obvious fantasy that Morgan was labouring under; that he was some sort of kiwi philosopher king writ large and come to save NZ with his unique brand of straight talking, common sense that only he could dispense.

The 2.4% TOP got in the polls is impressive per se for a first time out political party but when compared to what the Internet and Conservative parties polled in previous elections*4 it’s no big deal and clearly not any more resonant with the average voter than what Kim Dotcom or Colin Craig was peddling.

Going down with the waka

And from one wally called Morgan and a failed political party to another (albeit one that previously made it into parliament); this time Tuku Morgan, who recently quit his role as president of the Maori Party and was the architect of the parties disastrous campaign strategy in the recent election.

What was so disastrous about this strategy you ask?

Well for starters, it appeared to be completely divorced from the political reality of the Maori Party in 2017, polling well below the 5% threshold (often so close to zero as to be irrelevant) and being totally reliant on a single seat (all the others being won back by Labour in previous elections since 2005 when the party held all seven).

The kernel of Tuku's strategy was simple: get the Maori King (of who Morgan was an advisor to) to bad mouth the Labour Party in the run up to the election as a means to drum up support and arrest the hideous fall in seats and vote share*5 from their peak in 2005 when they swept all Maori seats in the wake of the foreshore & seabed issue.

So the Kings message was “screw Labour…” and nothing more which really was not the best way to endorse your own party and certainly not from an individual who, while royalty, seemed to have no real relevance to Maori in general and at best seemed to be an easily manipulated figurehead. And as I noted at the time royalty taking sides in politics is a dicey issue because if your side does not get in your out in the cold and that’s exactly what happened.

Labour now has all the Maori seats, Maori candidates and MPs and in the simple move of raising the minimum wage shortly after taking power did more for Maori, who are more affected by having to work in low paid occupations than others, in that single act than anything the Maori Party did in its nine years in the government.

Tuku Morgan should have known that the key to success in Maori politics was getting and retaining those seven Maori seats, as they conferred the political weight in parliament to make them an attractive coalition partner, and that what gave the party those seats in the first place was the wellspring of discontent that the foreshore & seabed issue had tapped into in 2005 and not the petty backbiting of a mostly irrelevant individual towards the one party which was the traditional resting place of the Maori voter.

And he should have known that if the party was to retain those seats it had to deliver meaningful change to Maori and not just political spin and empty promises which is why by the time 2017 rolled around the party had lost all but one seat and polled so low as to not count at all.

To be fair to Morgan though, by the time he came up with this bat-brained idea the party was already in dire straits under the leadership of Te Ururoa Flavell and Marama Fox and was fatally weakened from the get go when Pita Sharples and Tariana Turia made the fateful choice to go with National in 2008.

But the party could have gone out in a better fashion than it did or even made a fighting stand if there had been an idea better suited than the extremely low budget wrestling smack talk employed by Morgan, via the Maori King, to try and make Maori care about the Maori party.

And if vanity was the downfall of Gareth Morgan and TOP it’s not too difficult to see that Tuku Morgan may not have been the best choice for the role of party president or campaign strategist as Morgan political credentials remain solely an $89 pair of boxer shorts and rhorting the public weal so it’s hard to imagine what else other than his own vanity was prompting him to think that his plan was going to work when every shred of reality would have been saying “Kahore, kahore, kahore!”

National’s imaginary friend

And last but not least in this caravan of, what my staff-sergeant would have politely referred to as, “s**t rushing to the brain” ideas, is the recent news that the National Party is looking to form a new conservative party.

Of course they denied it but after I ran this past my well placed National party contact, T, the response I got was more than enough for me to believe this rumour has some truth to it.

I do acknowledge the sheer science fiction scale to the idea that National clone itself as a means to pad out the illusion that it’s the only party of any substance on the right side of the political line after the coalition of NZ First, Labour and the Greens has made living under a coalition seem like a harmonious possibility and thereby politically and ideologically isolating National.

However what I did get from T was more than enough to indicate that while saner minds might have prevailed at obvious lunacy of the mainline suggestion, one particular comment from him (which I shan’t repeat here) was more than enough to make me think that National is no longer keen on supporting political misanthrope ACT and, with its previous “coalition partners” (Peter Dunne and the Maori Party) out of parliament, it may be feeling a bit lonesome out there in right (wing) field.

And while ACT is nothing more than a political welfare scheme for Seymour, National has to take the blame for creating the god-forsaken, Ann-Randian, one man sewer that ACT has become by their continual gifting of Epsom to ACT as the means to foster the illusion that there is something more right-wing (and all that such a term entails) than National out there in New Zealand.

So while national cloning itself is off the cards I would not be surprised if national sought to clone ACT, which could then be gifted Epsom and thus maintain the illusion that there is something further right of National in NZ politics while simultaneously getting risk of pesky (and uncontrollable) ACT.

However given the obvious rifts that do exists within the party (think: whoever keeps leaking documents and information to Nicky Hagar or to the media (ie the Todd Barclay scandal) and the fact that there is nothing inherently monolithic about right wing politics and it would be prudent for the party to figure out how to keep those issues contained rather than have them spill out in public.

The problem is that splitting the vote base is not the way to do this as creating a satellite party has all sorts of risks. The first (as noted in the media) is that the public may see it as nothing more than a front for National and as such have no faith in its independence while the second is that there is no guarantee that once you spilt the vote base that the other party will remain controllable (think how the Tea-Party antics in the US have hurt the Republicans).

So what to do?

My guess is this issue will simmer away in National until someone feels strong enough to challenge Bill English for the leadership and what will predicate that will be any significant drop in Nationals polling, which at this time, is not an issue but those numbers can’t hold forever given the fickle nature of the average NZ voter and with national in opposition it is only a matter of time before something gives.

So until that time I give Bill & the B Team a pass on this one but the fact that somewhere in National this idea got floated is enough to put them in the same category as TOP and the Maori party in this post under the “what were they thinking!?” moniker.

So who is the most contaminated?

The easy answer to that question is the Maori party, who pissed away the opportunity given to them by the seven seats they once had in parliament and who as per my old KP post Many waka, one star to guide them shows that the biggest problem in Maori politics is the Maori politicians themselves.

TOPs abysmal outcome in the election really only hurt Gareth Morgan and with the party now all but dead expect the 2.4% that voted for TOP to head back to Labour (based on all TOP voters I have met, all seem to be disgruntled Labour) while National can be forgiven for indulging in some off-the-wall thinking, post-election, but the real test for them is that they still need a solution to their obvious problems, that of needing to rejuvenate the party (but more on that in another post soon).

For all three parties, the brave, post election face they had been putting on has finally melted away in the extreme left/center radiation being given off by the coalition government and exposed what lies beneath.

*-No, ACT does not count in this sense as; a) they held onto their seat but more importantly b) they were losers to begin with in the more realistic sense of being purely in parliament at the behest of National.

**-something he doubled down on post-election when the PMs cat died and he decided that it would be the right time to make further comment on it.

***-yes I know it’s probably redundant using absurd as an adjective to quixotic but if the shoes fits…

*4-The Internet Party polled 1.42% in the 2014 election while the Conservatives polled 2.65% and 3.97% in 2011 and 2014 respectively

*5-In 2005 2.12% and 7 seats; 2008 2.39 and 4 seats; 2011 1.43% and 3 seats; 2014 1.32% and 1 seat and 2017 1.2% and zero seats!

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 "*"

Elections 2017: Labour/Greens cakewalk in Mt Albert ruined by Gareth Morgan and TOP?

Well it looks like Martyn Bradbury will get his wish fulfilled with regards to the Mount Albert by-election.

Of course I am being facetious as I don’t think Martyn wants to see what is now unfolding in Mt Albert as The Opportunities Party Geoff Simmons has thrown his hat into the ring but to give him kudos as he did see it coming.

And Martyn would be right to wonder and worry about the situation as there are too many variables now in play to just treat this as a re-run of the Mt Roskill by-election in December where Labour just ran in an easy first over National.

In that event it was just Labour in a relatively safe seat vrs National newcomer (and political inept) Parmjeet Parmar while this time National has stepped aside and its Labour, Greens and now TOP into the fray.

I don’t agree with all of Martyn’s analysis but it’s clear and correct that he sees trouble coming with the dynamics of what instructions National will give to its 14,000 plus voters in the zone and the spoiler effect of TOP now hustling for votes along with the rest of them.

My main disagreement is his view that Labour and the Greens would not be able to play nice but I am willing to hedge my bets given that their MOU is in effect untested and this as a safe as place as any to test it.

Will the Labour/Greens relationship hold up in the campaign? (I think it will); which way will National voters go? (Like Martyn, I suspect that TOP will be a much more palatable candidate to them than Labour or the Greens); and what message will this send to the wider electorate? (that depends on the outcome but if TOP do well expect them to build on it).

I would be careful to say that this will be a microcosm of the coming general election but I would be a fool not to say that some portents could not been seen in the tea leaves when it’s all over.

First up: If Gareth Morgan and TOP do well then its game on for them and while not everyone likes an underdog, a lot more people like an underdog when it has a fighting chance (we could call this a mild version of FukYoo politics manifesting as a reactionary vote for TOP as a warning to both National and Labour) and that’s just what a good showing could provide to TOP, imagine, shock horror, what a surprise victory in Mt Albert could lead to (Winston are you paying attention?).

The kicker for this will be if National sends its troops into bat for TOP or not which is based on who National would prefer to work with in the outcome, Labour Greens or Gareth Morgan. So Bill English has a decision to make if he still has control of his 14,000. It might be that he does not and they go whatever way their whims take them.

Also Morgan can use this as a test run for TOP on the hustings and that’s invaluable experience which would normally be only able to be gotten in a general election so there is that factor as well.

If, as Martyn fears, a Labour/Greens breakdown could be the start of a bad run for the two and signal very plainly to the electorate that Labour and the Greens cant work together. Such an outcome would play out very badly later when the main event starts.

In essence I think Martyn has identified the highly variable nature of the situation and is right to have some unease about it.

So like him, watch Mt Albert carefully, very very carefully.

Elections 2017: This here middle voter aint big enough for both of us

Its been five days and the smoke is now clearing after the shootout at Ratana Pa on Monday.

And in the tradition of any good western (and plenty of Samurai films as well) the aftermath has seen a trail of bodies, blood and left open the possibility of further violence (or sequels).

The trigger for all this bad juju came when Gareth Morgan unexpectedly opened fire on Winston Peters which then saw further parties taking the opportunity to add to the body count as Labour sought to bury the hatchet, in the back of the Mana party (by dismissing it as irrelevant as Maori/Mana struggle to get past their differences) and convince Maori voters that they are worth voting for as he struggled to get past the previous dismissal of  Labour by the Maori King last year.

The only party truly unscathed (only to get ambushed by the Peter Theil/NZ Citizenship for creepy billionaires scandal) was Bill English who appears to have made a tactical decision to walk away from the more fractious Waitangi Day celebrations but make an obvious play for keeping the Maori vote onside by going to Ratana.

So lets break it down past the functional but bland coverage we got in the media.

If it was not clear before that The Opportunities Party and New Zealand First were never going to be compatible (except to the brainless dingbats at TVNZ who have only just figured that out when they declared "One thing is for certain, there'll be no opportunity for an alliance between Gareth Morgan and Winston Peters" in their coverage of the event) due to their both coveting the middle ground voter it is now.

Because there is never going to be enough true middle ground votes to go around and if Morgan and TOP were to get even a few percent in the polls, let alone more than 5%, it would gut Peters power as king maker and either transfer it to Morgan and leave the door open to a Labour/Greens/Opportunities government or simply neutralize the NZ First vote pool so that it would not be enough to keep National in power.

The mechanics of this are simple but a little hard to discern when having to pick through poll data to get at it but the fact is that National is unlikely to be on 46% when it goes to the polls nor Labour on 28% as the usual dynamic in the lead up to elections is the gap between the government and the main challenger closes and that often breaks down to the higher declining and the lower rising (specially with a third term government).

So what we have always known would happen was that come the final score tally it would fall on some middle ground party (normally NZ First) to add its weight to one or another party and ensure that a government was formed.

But as I have discussed before NZ First is never going to go with Labour if The Greens* are in the mix which in effect means NZ First backing National as the default option because it would make no sense for a middle ground, king making, party to sit on the fence and withhold its vote block as that would achieve nothing and leave it unable to gain the concessions for its voters it would normally covet as the price of supporting one side or another.

And this was the expected scenario until Gareth Morgan and TOP came on the scene (see my Thank You Gareth Morgan, Thank You! post from late last year for more) and aimed to upset Winston's apple cart.

And if you thought his attack on the MP from Northland was crude and personal  you would be right but that could only have been a calculated move on Morgans part as it would be impossible to think that he has not grasped the simple fact that there is not enough middle ground votes for two middle ground parties AND remain effective as the king maker.

So what you saw at Ratana was Morgan deliberately attacking Peters, as he has nothing to loose and as well as deliberately positioning himself as an alternative to any middle ground (or potential middle ground) voters out there.

Morgan is not going to get votes by being nice and simply making policy statements, he has to get in the game and go to the mat with his one true opponent, Winston Peters, to make any headway in the political space and this is why his attack on Peters at Ratana is just the first shot in what will be an increasingly bloody war of words right up until polling day.

Simply put, Morgan can only get voters from the limited pool of middle ground voters and possibly from the inner fringes of Labour and National, but to do that he needs to get past the gate keeper to that sexy voter base first, Winston Peters.

And don't expect Winston to play nice either, his savaging of Morgan two days after on Morning Report, was classic Winston, great on edible soundbites and headline making quotes as well as enough personal attacks to more than equal anything he got at Ratana but sounding rather hollow at the end of the day as everyone knows Peters has a pretty mouth but cannot be trusted to remain reliable in support.

Both Peters and Morgan understand that there is only room for one in this narrow political space and its only going to take a few percentage points to drag NZ first back under 5% (currently NZ First sit at 8%) or for Morgan to crack 5% (because I have personally seen enough groundswell of support for TOP to convince me that they will naturally get 2-3% in the polls by natural attraction) so every little bit counts and there is no room for personal niceties, it will be bad blood, slander and insults from here until the polls close.

Which means for Winston and NZ First this will be the first time, in a long time, that they will actually have a fight on their hands.

Normally come elections, Labour and National have avoided antagonizing Peters too much because they know that if they get enough votes they will have to woo him to their side to make a government but Morgan does not have that worry, its the exact opposite, he is seeking to usurp the kingmaker and its a struggle to the death, only one can prevail.

In sheer fight metrics Peters has the skills and experience but Morgan has one advantage that Peters does not and cannot get, something I term the First Time Syndrome.

Just as Peters drew in a large numbers of voters in 1996 by campaigning as a true independent opposition party to National rather than Labour so too can Morgan and TOP, this one time only, tap into a potentially big pool of disaffected voters who sit on the middle fringes of Both Labour and National (and possibly in NZ First as well) and who are looking for someone not sullied by the dark stains of politics to give their vote to.

The First Time Syndrome only works once because that's how it politics works but its there for Morgan to take advantage of this time around and its magic is potent.

If Morgan can make a convincing enough argument he could easily draw in over 5% and bring in enough seats in the house to decide the next government and in doing so also sound the death knell of NZ First.

Oh Winston might survive by holding onto his seat in Northland but it would sink the party as Winston is NZ First and everyone knows it. None of the talking heads that sit and nod when Winston pontificates in parliament is worth a hill of beans and if Winston were to fail to get in or the party vote went below 5% they are looking for new jobs come the day after the election.

So it will get mean and personal and don't for a second think that National and Labour wont be trying to swing things for their favored party in this rather tight space because National knows that NZ First is the natural keystone to their electoral success if they sink low enough in the polls that Labour and The Greens could beat them by combining.

In such a situation NZ First would sweep in and add enough to National to again get ahead of Labour/Greens and form a fourth term National government.

On the flip side, while Morgan has made no clear statement of supporting Labour its clear that much of what is driving him is based on the current state NZ is in and National has enabled these problems so it seems likely that to bring about change the natural position is to back Labour and the Greens and not National.

So Morgan is playing for all the marbles and Peters cant do his old song and dance and avoid the kind of blows that usually are traded between National and Labour.

Thus while Labour and National will keep most of their ammunition and plans on hold until campaigning starts in earnest Gareth Morgan has set the process in motion by attacking Peters at Ratana and Winston cant back away from this one.

This will get ugly.

*-I had this reinforced to me by a colleague in Wellington who is a member of the National Party (dines with John Key on occasion) and gleefully pointed out, in significant details, the dynamics of the hate between NZ First and the Greens which extends form sheer political dysfunction down to a raft of personal animosities and blood feuds (I will be discrete here and not name names but it seems that if left alone and unsupervised in a locked room for any period of time there would be blood seeping under the doors and into the halls in short order as both sides sought to literally kill each other)

Thank you Gareth Morgan, thank you!

Friday was a long day at work. I started at 7AM (as is my norm) and I was just coming out of a rather tense meeting at 5.30PM, heading towards my desk in the hope of quickly checking my work in-box, scan the web and get out of there before 6.

Emails cleared, coat on and just a quick check of the news on Stuff when something caught my eye.

It was an article that Gareth Morgan, billed in the article as "philanthropist" (which I suppose he is but most of know him as an economist, the guy who runs a Kiwsaver fund or that "nutter who wants to kill all cats") had formed a political party (The Opportunities Party - TOP for short) and was planning to "light a fuse" under Parliament (the symbolism of uttering such a statement on the front steps of Parliament on the eve of Guy Fawkes was undoubtedly known to him).

There are not a lot of articles on NZ politics these days that can get my pulse racing but Sam Sachdeva's article certainly did that (although I am really enjoying Tracy Watkins semi gonzo reportage out of the US at the moment - keep it up Tracy!) and by the time I had finished reading and was heading for the door it was just after 6PM.

So here I am on a relaxed Sunday after doing some odd jobs round the house sitting here with a beer and some good broken beat wafting down the hallway as I write this and its been a few days for me to mull things over because Sam's article was absolute gold in terms of quotes and information.

Think about it; Gareth Morgan is going to form a political party, "light a fuse" under parliament and he has all the solutions to NZ's problems because they are "just so easy, really." If that's not a clarion call to an exciting next 12 months till the election then I don't know what would be.

The only more exciting alternative to the coming election would be if John (father of inutilus playboy Max) Key was to pull the fleshy rubber mask of his face at a Beehive press conference and stand revealed as a Lizard Person from Rigel 6 and then announce to a stunned press gallery that National were renaming the party the Rigelian Reptile Party (RRP) and would be running on a platform of fattening up the people for "their new overlords" and that we would be all invited to a feast on the mother ship when it arrived.

He would then utter a guttural hiss when asked about "the actual details" of that plan before retreating from the light while his press secretary would try desperately to put a positive spin on things as angry chaos reigns among the assembled reporters.

But no, Key would never do that, he is much too cold blooded to loose the plot now before the mother-ships arrive, he wants us docile and unprepared for whats coming so we will just have to entertain ourselves with what Mr Morgan has to give us.

And Gareth has been bountiful in his entertainment offerings. To start he delivered in one press conference a wealth of quotes which just scream for further analysis and I note that Sachdeva was very careful to use quotation marks around every utterance he (Morgan) used lest we think he (Sachdeva) was taking things out of proportion and casting Morgan in an incorrect light.

To give Morgan his credit though he appeared to know what he was saying as when asked about the situation he likened himself to a NZ Trump, which shows a higher degree of self awareness than Trump would ever have but does little to change the fact that what he was saying sounded a lot like many of the core narratives that Trump has been uttering (just getting things done, knocking out the establishment politicians, how easy things are etc).

Now lets pause here for a second before we dig into the meat of the situation and note two key points.

The first is that I while I am not writing post purely in the vein of "politics as entertainment" that's where we are in the world today.

When the elites start perpetuating their own broken system to such an extent that the waters keep rising and they just yawn and go back to their petty squabbles the populace either starts to take power in to their own hands or succumbs to their powerlessness and begins to mass hallucinate, treating the whole experience with the kind of detached attitude of watching reality TV ("its ok, its only on TV, it cant hurt us") rather than a matter which needs addressing urgently.

Net result: a political climate perfect for an individual to come in and start saying the things like Trump, and now Morgan has done.

The second is that while we have been laughing at whats has been going down in the US of A we may not be laughing in 12 months time.

Not because Morgan will turn out to be the anti-Christ in the same manner that Trump has been demonized but that we (the collective we as a nation) have been unable to recognize what is happening to our society and even if we do, we (the collective "we" again) remain unwilling to do anything substantive about it and thus we (still collective) will not to take the power back from our elected representatives and instead wait with baited breath for a person to come out and tell us they have the solution to all our problems and that those solutions are "just so easy, really".

Of course NZ politics is not the same as US politics, we have MMP to prevent the lunacy of a two party diktat but we do seem to have a more than a few pressing problems to which the government (or other parties) wont do anything about which are just crying out for a solution, final or otherwise.

And that's where we are today, politics as entertainment and an electorate low on voting moxie and burnt out on a secession of lying scumbags in Wellington that we don't believe anything they say and to which we would happily give over power to a person who has the solution to all our problems and not "afraid to make the hard calls" (that last quote is taken from the Opportunities party website).

So don't say "it cant happen here", don't say "not in NZ" because it just has happened here and its been happening all round the rest of the world (the US, the UK, Greece, France, Spain, Austria, the whole Middle East with the Arab Spring and many others) so you can either roll yourself back into the comfort of your delusions or crack open both eyes and take a look around at what is knocking on the front door.

Its not the Mormons or Colin Craig, its not Forrest and Bird, its not some aggressive vacuum cleaner salesman or even the cops (come to bust your euthanasia cult), no its Gareth Morgan and what he has to offer is far more appealing.

Now back to the analysis.

Morgan may face the same problems that the Conservatives and Mana/Internet faced but I think its safe to say that Morgan is not playing the same game as either of those two parties.

To start Colin Craig and the Conservatives came close but in the end it was their conservative religious flavor which kept the electorate from buying in wholesale while Mana/Internet had just the opposite problem by being far too radical and talking just shy of revolt at times.

Morgan is unlikely to be taking either such path and unlike Craig or Dotcom (also both also rich men trying their hand at politics) he already has positive brand recognition (though his investment and economic backgrounds) and cuts a lot closer to our own Millionaire PM, John Key, so he can already claim some legitimacy to the throne (in a world where economics is religion).

Also Morgan is already media tested and while some of his media exposure in the past is less than favorable (think cat culling) he also has his philanthropic background to buttress that in terms of brand equity so unlike Dotcom or Craig he is not just a faceless moneybag trying to muscle into parliament. He has credibility and enough history to be the face of something larger without being sunk by a wave of voter reservation killing his polling from the get go.

That does not mean he is going to sweep into parliament but it does mean that in an electorate which is jaded from the same old worn out politics and politicians he may be able to gain enough traction in 12 months to break 5%.

But where will he get his votes from I hear you cry, where?

Good question, voice in my head, good question.

The answer is either one of the following sources:

Morgan and TOP can either follow the normal route and try to take them off other political parties which is likely to see him move to fight it out for the middle voter with National, Labour and NZ First (because he would not survive on either the far left or right given that the Greens and Act have those spaces locked down) or try for what Mana/Internet intend and tap into the 25% plus of eligible voters who don't vote. Or he could go for both.

No matter what path he chooses its an uphill slog and given his intent to light a fire in parliament and upset the establishment it seems likely that he is going to try for both but with a tactical emphasis on muscling NZ First out of the center and then cobbling together enough votes to get a seat in parliament either via an electorate or the 5% threshold.

Both are paths fraught with danger but there is also that mood in NZ which, like the US, he can tap into and to which established NZ parties cannot; he can play the underdog outsider card for all its worth and even a political rock star like Winston Peters cannot swing that beat the same way because it is essentially a one time technique, it can only be used once as the party or individual enters the political sphere (or in Winston's case broke ranks in such a way as to essentially make him an underdog/outsider again) and plays on their unique position to gain votes as a form of protest.

Therefore come November 2017 Morgan could have mustered enough support to make the election a very interesting spectacle.

I don't think we will see a lot of Trumpism going round but neither will we see a lot of Clintonesque behavior. Instead it will be NZs own particular brand of sycophantic lolly scramble as politicians do the hustings and parties desperately try to outbid each other in promises while denouncing the other with Morgan in the middle sucking up just enough votes to create an even closer race than we were already likely to get.

Where Morgan will get his votes from will primarily be from NZ First territory but also from Labour and National. Winston Peters has had the political rebel space to himself for so long that its going to be a shock for him to potentially share it with another person playing the exact same card as he did in the early 90s. Winston of course has his niche voter bases (like the elderly) which will remain loyal to some degree but again its a fair guess that Morgan will be targeting such a demographic as a good source of votes and again playing off his sound economic image.

And the TOP website, while currently very sparse, gives us some clues as to what Morgans likely political viewpoint will be with references to individual choice and the afore mentioned "making the hard calls" indicating (along with his economic background) a likely conservative twang to his middle of the road stance (again something to worry Winston).

Morgans biography and life history indicate a possible libertarian viewpoint, albeit filtered through the lens of life in New Zealand. His self made millionaire story has all the hallmarks of a man believing in self reliance and while its too early to be sure I sense that Morgan will be closer to the right than the left when it comes down to things (again prime NZ First territory).

But amid all this speculation it would be wrong to either write him off or take him to the bank. Morgan is treading a hard road and new political parties have come and gone before and not just in recent memory so the next 12 months is going to be a race in many ways and I don't think he will be doing this just for the grins so watch out establishment politicians.

Finally its worth noting some of the responses from other politicians which came out in Sachdeva's article.

Andrew Little's response was the most unbelievable of the lot as unless he knows something we don't its hard not to imagine his comment about Morgan being "in our corner" as nothing but a bravado laced off the cuff comment said through clenched teeth when confronted by a reporter seeking comment.

Little is rapidly running out of time to get Labour back into the game for 2017 (although perhaps some magic has come out of their recent party conference - lets watch that space) and he does not need another vote siphoning upstart political party wrecking things just when the basic plan for the coming election might have been taking shape, so his take on Morgan is likely to be political blather more than genuine happiness at the prospect of another challenger for the title.

The "not worried" from Green co-leader James Shaw also has the reek of someone trying hard not to hide his upset at the prospect of another potential vote magnet in orbit around the Beehive. To be sure potential Morgan and Green voters are probably not the same demographic but if Labour gets knackered by Morgan then the odds of the Greens going into government go down exponentially unless they decide to play with National.

Steven Joyce's response is probably the most prosaic of the lot, saying it will "add color and entertainment" but that is, like Labour, ignoring the potential loss of disgruntled National voters who were never going to go to Labour or NZ First but just might swing towards Morgan (chipping nationals lead down even further and making the prospect of a deal with a king maker party all the more necessary) if he says the right things. Still he was accurate in his take of the situation by stating that there have been "crowded markets before" and that a clear message is important.

Absent from the feedback in the article was, surprise surprise, any comment from Winston Peters and perhaps that was simply because Winston was not available for comment but I think its telling that the one person who will truly suffer if Morgan gets his mojo on was not around to have some input.

So that's all for now but I think Morgan will be making a solid play for the punter and in doing so he has made the next 12 months of politics infinitely more interesting by coming in and having the potential to breakup the squalid political dynamic that had begun to harden like a vomit stain on the rug the night after the party.

So thank you Gareth Morgan, thank you very much.