Sorry for the apparent dig at you, that wasn’t what I meant . Just needling Tim. ‘Cause he deserves it.

Minor parties typically do not poll well until the election is three months or out. Likewise both National and Labour saw the polls tighten where neither party got more than 50%. In 2002, the centre parties New Zealand First and United Future got a share of such votes. In 2008, it would be natural for National to fall below 50%. The country isn’t ready for either a Labour party or a National party to have a majority.

2005 polls were fickle and highly inaccurate pretty much because there was not a huge gap between Labour and National thus the polls were volatile.

By the time the election is called, polls tend to tighten up. In 2002 the centrist parties got larger share of the votes. In 2008 National’s polling fell while Labour’s rose. The polls during the 3 months of this election, showed that there was more probability for National to govern than Labour. And the last set of polls proved rather accurate. Still Greens always seem to poll higher than what they receive at the election. This year I think had Labour not stuffed up in regards to the H-Fee scandal and had John Key done poorly in the debates. The polls could have said otherwise. National always looked likely to receive more votes than Labour. The real question was whether Labour couldn’t somehow come up with the numbers to govern. This year that proved impossible.

Three polls in May / June had Labour on 29%, and National on 55 or 56%. This certainly didn’t reflect the actual result on election day.

Link’s here:

http://www.95bfm.com/assets/sm/189637/3/PhilGofflog200811120800.mp3

I wasn’t wrong about that Tim, the polls at their worst were much worse than the final result.

r0b was also very wrong when he wrote: This I think is the narrative that will win Labour the election – Labour’s policies work, National’s don’t. In the end, that’s what matters.

I was wrong about that – turns out that having the best, most effective policy doesn’t matter after all. Bugger! You’ll also find, if you look, me consistently saying that Labour could lose the coming election.

I could reply with a list of your quotes and occasional lies for you to defend, but really, got better things to do.

True, but then Goff never developed much of a relationship with any group. While Clark was assiduously building networks in the late 1970s/early 1980s, Goff wasn’t.

I thought that this might prevent him one day from taking the leadership, and the lack of a support base does make his position just a little more tenuous should he have trouble demonstrating effectiveness. But I don’t expect that to be a problem — witness his comments on the EFA this morning.

In short, the lack of relationships with Maori doesn’t reflect a lack of interest in Maori, but rather a lack of relationships full stop. I don’t see any impediment to Goff building good relationships with Maori. Quite the reverse.

True, but when it comes to the major structural failures within Labour it’s only the resignation of Smith that will open the door to improvements there.

Williams might have made some serious cock-ups but he never had much to do with the Party organization. As long as Smith stays the Party organization will be remain just as moribund, unresponsive and dismissive at is ever was.

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