Written By: - Date published: 10:35 pm, October 14th, 2008 - 63 comments
Categories: helen clark -
Tags:
Labour has made two serious mistakes in their campaign today. One was specifically rejecting a policy to take the minimum wage to $15 an hour and the other was tonight’s debate.
The first was an easy policy supported by every party other than National and Act that would have ensured a large chunk of people who needed a pay rise got one and would also have ensured a strong turn-out in low income pro-Labour areas like South Auckland. The feeling I got from that decision was that it was one that had been made by Cullen and was likely to have involved little consultation. If this was the case I would hope his colleagues take him to task on it because it was poor politics and they will know that.
The second was more complicated. Essentially the problem tonight was Helen. She is a very smart politician and very good on policy but she is not someone who is good at taking PR advice and over the last few years she has lost some very sharp advisers. Advisers that were willing to tell her when she was wrong.
Watching the debate I came to the conclusion that she approached it without realising how it would play out. No doubt her confidence in her own judgment would have been bolstered by her resounding success with her launch speech which was very much her own work and showed strong statesman-like vision. Exactly what was needed. On Sunday.
The problem was that come Tuesday she tried to play the same role and that was clearly the wrong horse for that course. Again as I have said in comments it was a youtube debate, with real Kiwis asking their real, jumbled, charmingly odd and downhome questions. This was never going to be the time to be statesman-like. In fact that juxtaposition clearly risked enforcing the “out of touch” image National has spent so much time and money developing for Clark.
By comparison Key was on-message, kept it downhome and used all the focus-tested lines and fabricated statistics (fabrications which may yet bite him on the arse). It wasn’t a great performance and Clark could have done better if she’d realised the rules of the game she was playing. But she didn’t.
So my advice? Helen, get yourself some good people and listen to them. They may not be as clever as you when it comes to intricate policy detail but if they’re good at what they do they’ll know how things like this will play and they’ll make sure you’re prepared. You can’t be the best at everything all at once.
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Re. Clarke Vs Clark ..
I spell-checked it by eye after hurriedly typing a first draft, but that one got through.
BTW, as I write there is a red line under each word. Is that some kind of spellchecker ?
On another matter, I understand that Therese Arsenau is Canadian, perhaps Quebecois. [Does she follow this blog ?]
Not having grown up here she may not understand the effect it had on NZ at that time.
I stumbled across it at a rugby match disrupted at half-time by people protesting against an “All Black” tour to South Africa excluding Maori which made me think seriously about the issues. But many who were upwardly mobile at the time were more concerned with cars, fishing, socialising, studying, and getting on.
It’s sad that Key can’t at least address the issues, if he has any awareness of them. After all, contemporary Israeli policy of walling off Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank has been compared to apartheid, and Israel was one of South Africa’s closest allies at the time, helping overcome international arms boycotts.
As the NZRFU discovered when it tried to patent the name ‘All Black’, it was coined to describe a Welsh rugby team who were coal miners, arriving to play covered in coal dust, reminiscent of the Black and White minstrel shows of the time.
Not a good look in the age of 60′s civil rights, or of Barack Obama today.
[lprent: Yep the red underline will be a spell checker from your browser.]
Daveski, I would love to believe that the 80′s and 90′s will not be repeated but the signs do not look promising. I don’t think Roger Douglas is coming back into politics to do “labour-lite”. His only regrets about the 80′s are that he didn’t go far enough and he is coming back to attend to unfinished business. What will Act expect from National in return for their support?
And the recorded comments from the National cocktail party- especially English’s “nice Mr Key” comment that suggest Key is just a pretty, safe face put up to soothe voters fears and lull them into voting National- make me very uneasy. And I don’t believe for one minute that even if Key is all that he appears he will have control over his party. The debacle with Williamson and the toll roads showed that.
I see parallels with the 1990 New Zealand election. People voted for Bolger- they believed he was an honest, trustworthy man and he had the common touch. But he never had control of National once in power. National also used the poor state of the NZ economy after the 1987 crash to justify their lurch to the far right- remember TINA “there is no alternative”? We are still recovering from those policies and we lost ground against Australia at that time (they never took the hard right path and it paid off) that we will probably never make up.I fear National will use the current economic crisis to justify bringing in hard right policies again.
I also see parallels with the American election of 2000. People had enjoyed 8 years of good government and they thought that it didn’t matter who they voted for. Why not vote for the fellow with the folksy touch? Big mistake!! The USA is now despised, close to bankrupt and it is threatening to take the rest of the world down with it.
rave, not key the rich. No, maybe you’d know the expression a bit rich—that was what I was saying. About your term “Keynesian demand management”..
Personally I doubt any cred in relation to that term exists in J.M.K’s written work. Whereas it is more than likely it comes from post-Keynes interpretation.
The difficulty you would have, of course, is perhaps not knowing a brief or name or some other tag to which the term can be attributed. Likely not, at anyrate, with the status of JMK. So, yes, I understand such a predicament.. and thanking you for asking my clarification.
lprent, any chance of you changing ‘my’ gravatar..? all those squares look awful and purple so much closer to my spirit than a pale red.. something open perhaps with a sense of the dynamic to it..
if not, oh well, I’ll try not to look at the thing..
rosa, care to click my name above for an interesting catchup beginning The Skinny..
[lprent: put your own image against your e-mail. Instructions are here http://www.thestandard.org.nz/faq/gravatar/#GravatarSignup
Thats why I have the dolphin on the net (dolphin nicked from a book cover of David Brin's, the net is an old IE logo). Less bloated than some other gravatars around - they are just black and white....]
This is not a site I usually visit and I came here by following a link. Having stayed and browsed the comments as well as the main post it seems you have all overlooked one thing.
In 2005 Key trounced Cullen every time they appeared on TV together. Last night he took the first step in doing the same to Clark..
pdm,
Yours is not an intellect I usually respond to but it seems you have overlooked one thing.
In 2005 Cullen continued being the minister of finance.
bill brown – only because of a lot of skullduggery by Clark and her cohorts. Not something I would want to be associated with or acknowledging.
By the way you have ignored the thrust of my comment – Key is a far better one on one debater than Cullen and probably Clark as well based on last evening.
pdm …Key has at last demonstrated that he is a better one on one debater than he is a one on one communicator with the media or anyone else who challenges his recollection of the facts…I dont think he has ever shown he is a better debater than either Cullen or Clark. In my books he would have to exibit some honesty to come anywhere close to being a better debater, and he failed to do that last night.
Alexandra – I have great difficulty when you hold up the corrupt Clark and Cullen as pillars of honesty. I would trust Key ahead of them any day.
I would trust Key ahead of them any day.
Which one?
pdm I would trust Key ahead of them any day.
You cant be serious – just last night he lied 6-7 times in less than an hour.
Anyone who can do that and smile while he’s deceiving the public is nothing more than a worm mate & you dont get much lower than that.
Chances are in next few weeks he’ll be doing a fair bit of squirming to put in over on you again
I give up – now I know why I don’t bother with this place. I shall return to where the sane people, without blinkers are.
are the the ones you’re wearing made from a different manufacturer, perhaps one thats only going to pay 2% into kiwisaver….. mmmmmmm
no one has ever bought anything made by John Keys and co Ltd. all he has ever done is sell down other peoples money at a profit.
lprent,
tks for that. I tried.. got the reset pass form and email for new, but clicking that took for forever.. don’t know why.. maybe overload the other end;-) .I gave up..
tell you what tho, there seems nothing there to enable me swap one..and with that uncertainty added to waiting.. I gave it away..any ideas..?
Once you are there
you can associate different graphics with different e-mail addresses, or not have one at all.
Guess they’re overloaded.
Jo Zinny- great blog
Key looked like the politically desperate man he was, during the debate.
It is not yet clear that it worked, in terms of the polls, or in winning the broader debate.
In these times, a lot can change in three weeks.
Tara
“Key looked like the politically desperate man he was, during the debate.”
I don’t believe he looked desperate at all and this blog which is openly partisan and anti Key and National had posters who scored it as a win to Key, perhaps you might be viewing his performance from a bit of an entrenched viewpoint ?
hs: I think that we had very low expectations of Key in the debate. He exceeded them by not managing to shoot parts of his anatomy (or policies) off. That is why we scored him as ‘winning’ – he didn’t self-destruct.
Now we know that he can handle the debate, the standard goes up.
What has been interesting is that was pretty much the same standard that other opinion commentators were using. Most noticeably by such varied people as Michelle Boag (in the later discussion on TV), Colin Espiner on his blog, here, in fact anywhere across the spectrum.
I don’t think he ‘won’ apart from surviving. But that is good enough for the Nay’s.
captcha: Alabama Thought
Yeah right
“Now we know that he can handle the debate, the standard goes up.”
Did you watch him in 2005? I thought he debated pretty well then too against Cullen?
Yep. Relatively speaking he was did better than Brash did. Of course most people didn’t bother watching those. It is only the political junkies who tend to watch the finance spokes people arguing with each other.
This was about the first time that most of the general public got to see Key speak for any length of time. He didn’t shoot himself. Now that is largely the personality parts out of the way. So the following debates will tend to be more on policy.
Of course Sainsbury should have shot himself for being pathetic as a moderator. He has now established that he will let the shout overs to be the norm. So from here on out that is going to result in each side disrupting the other. John Key did most of it until Helen got annoyed and then she proceeded to prevent it happening by talking over Key’s whinging.
But in any case it means that most policy level debate will not be audible. Hopefully the other TV stations do not follow the same level of stupidity.
hs, are you the chronicle..? Not a personal question y’understand—just a straight one.
So far as I read here the standard blog takes other viewpoints, and why I respect it. Bigots, I can understand, attract bans. Deservedly.
others, I didna see the TV debate, but comments and observations made here would suggest that maybe the M did a ‘Brash’ on a supposed novice. After all, I’m sure Don wouldna wish be known monopolising political politeness. Whether others needed to see it or not.
rosa, thank you — like to try for two in a row. All welcome..
oops, that should read PM, not M, above
JZ
I’ve got no idea what you’re on about.
lprent, Once you are there – (smiley) – you can associate different graphics with different e-mail addresses, or not have one at all.
How do I get a smiley up..? previously I’ve tried with keyboard keys but natcha! Ideas..
HS, the higherstandard chronicle – once was a tertiary edu mag. Could still be so for all I know..
Assuming you can login..
at top.
My Account, add e-mail address, then activate via e-mail. That ensures that the e-mail is a valid one.
My Account, add image, usually from disk, then drag the dotted box to show where to crop the image, then crop and finish. Then you can select a e-mail address to put the image on.
Takes anywhere up to half an hour and this site will pick it up. It takes longer if you’re changing from an old image to a new one because of client side caching