Written By: - Date published: 7:13 pm, September 13th, 2008 - 69 comments
Categories: election 2008 -
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There’s an important difference between negative campaigning and dirty tricks but it already seems the two are getting confused in the media.
Negative campaigning is saying bad things about your opponent that are at least arguably true (eg Clark saying Key was like a tourist at the South Auckland markets).
Dirty campaigning is knowingly telling lies about your opponent (eg the Bush campaign’s lies about McCain in 2000 for example), making attacks on personal issues ie. something that has nothing to do with your opponent’s policies or political persona (eg the attacks on Clark for not having children), or using an unethical practice (eg. telling different audiences contradictory things).
Dirty campaigning should be condemned. Negative campaigning is valid; it is part of contrasting your case for being elected with your opponent’s. It would be better if everyone could just make a positive argument for being elected but the pubic also deserves to know about candidates’ negatives and only their opposition (and, occasionally, the media) will tel us about them. Incidentally, Key says he will not run a negative campaign but does what you hear him say meet that promise? Indeed, every time he say he won’t run a negative campaign he is purposely accusing Labour of being negative. That’s an attack from Key in itself and its usually followed by more hackneyed negative lines about the Government.
While we’re on the topic, when Helen Clark said ‘hard hats on’ to Labour supporters, contrary to what the commentariat seem to think, that did not mean ’get ready for a dirty campaign’. It meant ‘get ready to work hard’. I can see why someone who never has anything to do with manual labouring would get it wrong; they probably equate a hard hat with a military helmet, to be worn when shrapnel is flying. But working class people know you wear a hard hat when you’re on to a building site. ‘Hard hats on’ means ‘get to work’.
[Update: I didn't think this was necessary but appearantly it is: I'm not claiming that either side has a monopoloy on employing dirty tricks.]
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There may be merit in what you say, randal. It’s your choice. You are entitled to your opinion. In fact you have a right to holding your opinion. So should you ever visit and tell me the same, I still would not censor you, on the grounds that i did not agree. I have a couple of visitors to MWT, one is a absolute wing-nut of teh right poersuasion. I don;t hold his views, and actually think he is a bit pathalogical. But he has a right. And debate is about shallenging opinions, not shutting them down, by smearing the other person..
And debate is about shallenging opinions, not shutting them down, by smearing the other person.
Hypocrite fits you perfectly monkey. How can you deliver your little homilies on quality debate and not smearing when you write rubbish like this:
http://www.thestandard.org.nz/?p=2826#comment-83192
Honestly, grow up.
Never mind the negative versus dirty debate…. did anyone just see Phil Goff on Agenda having Guyon Espiner for breakfast?
Brilliant!
yeah loved that – Guyon Espiner gets the smackdown from phil goff. Very interesting Agenda actually. Mainly because of the total ineptitude of these journalists on show for everyone to see.
Speaking of dirty tricks…
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10532061
“Rochelle Rees told the Herald on Sunday she was interested in politics but not affiliated to any party”
Really being elected onto the National Executive of Young Labour isn’t afffiliated to any party?
The left caught out again lying to the public – pathetic
mike:
Too bad for you that the MSM in New Zealand have too many trivial things to concern themselves with to be bothered with something like ‘the facts’.
Mike, that story is really about the completely “clueless” journalist Cliff Taylor. A tech journo doing a story fed to him about a google bomb and he does not bother googling the person who fed him the story.
More lazy, clueless journalism.
Rochelle appears to have a sense of humour if you can look past the anti human pro furry animals aspect to her personality.
[lprent: She should have - she isn't a sysop yet. But she is a pretty good coder.]
So just like when helen clark misleads the public it’s the medias fault for not asking the correct questions.
This deception thing is becoming quite regular from the left.
“Campaign on trust” what a joke
Clueless Cliff Taylor has updated the story, updated it without basic fact checking on the new info she has fed him this morning.
One thing the left and right appear to agree on is the elementary school standard of print journalists in this country.
Got youtube?
I saw it Draco, with Goff installed as labour leader six months ago they would have been 10 points in front.
Paul Robeson
According to what the Auditor General discovered as illegally spent tax payers money and taking into account National’s “blunder” with their GST. The PM is worth 8 times what Key is worth.
So Keys is using espinnerer for his fall guy now. Just as well I suppose as he {keys} is liable to lose his tmeper when anyone dares to question him. Hell this election is getting tacky already…zip a deedooodah zipadeeday…
burt, that’s been done to death and you know that if the AG had used 12 instead of 3 months, the Nat’s would have been in the same boat as Labour.
r0b
True, now that I think about it a little.
Barnsley Bill and Draco TB
If Goff ‘slapped down’ Espiner, is that really a cause for ‘celebration’?
If journo’s were in any way half decent at their jobs then ALL politicians would dread upcoming interviews. But they’re not. So politicians aren’t. And that isn’t good for any of us.
A good journalist wouldn’t indulge in beat-up, or rumour/gossip. They wouldn’t focus on personalities. They would have done their homework and any politician who tried to peddle a dodgy line would be made breakfast of.
But that’s not happening. I guess part of the reason is no journalist wants to be the one who sticks their neck out first and is subsequently denied access to the next spoonfed sitting of ‘official’ pap.
My point is not whether Goff or Espiner were in the right on Agenda. If a politician can get the better of a journalist who abides by the do’s and don’ts outlined above, then said journalist should be looking for a new job. And they should be seeking alternative employment if they do not abide by the do’s and don’ts…’cause then they ain’t failed journalists; they just ain’t journalists at all.
mike:
Last time I looked the Young Labour exec was about 20 strong. In other words about a third of the people who turned up to the conference. It wasn’t exactly hard to get elected on to it. I think what you have to do is tor turn up and not vehemently object to getting elected.
Rochelle was on it for a year but hasn’t even been a NZLP member for a few years. Like manay of the posters here, she tends towards the greens. I her case because they have a better policy about the treatment of animals.
r0b I really do think that there is a danger that New Zealand is heading for ‘banana republic’ status. Which is why I wrote my post. Anyone who wished to make a contribution and rebutt or debate it then all the better. For goodness sake, I’m running a blog called ‘Monkey with Typewriter’ don’t you think that there may be a eentsy clue that i am being provocative or giving myself range to indulge inn the satirical?
If you want to put your head in the sand, and pretend that all is rosy in the garden, then fine. I think there are serious constitutional issues at stake here, and Helen Clark is for better or sorse, exhibiting a natural human tendency to exploit them. Not because she is a bad person, but because the checks and balances are so ineffective they render a government even under MMP as a potential despotism. Don’t take my word for it read up on Mike Moore the other week. Like I said to randal your own opinion is your prerpgative. This is the election campaign now. It is about debating and challenging issues and it is about engaging provoking and arguing. How many times have you endorsed the ‘secret agenda’ meme? All well and good, can’t I do a ‘banana republic’ meme?
By the way in case you forgot, I also posted this on the same day:
“Actually – on reflection – I was rude to do this (post a copy) so, I’ll pre-empt the reasonable thing to do, and ask whoever is moderating if they would please delete my long link-whore-post.
heheh you said ‘wank’”
As you may divine from the ‘wank’ reference ‘growing up’ is not an option, I’ve seen what it does to people.
That’s what I was saying about a year ago. HC has been a great PM for us but the allure is wearing thin.
Bill, all I was asking for was a youtube copy so that I could watch it. I don’t watch TV and the TVNZ OnDemand website only seems to work if you have MS Windows installed. (Wonder if the next Labour government could be persuaded to legislate that all government departments and SOEs etc have to use open standards rather than proprietary ones – show their support for a free-market)
But, yeah, the reporter should be able to hold their own against a politician that they’re interviewing. It would be much better for our democracy.
No more than under FPP- in fact, considerably less so.
Under FPP, you were likely to have a government composed of a single party. (and maybe the occasional independent who lends support) Single-party governments are much more inclined to despotic tendencies, as multi-party governments are far more likely to destabilise under those conditions.
Really, the constitutional issues you allude to are themselves the problem- mainly, the parliament exercises sovereignty in New Zealand, even if it is nominally invested in the Monarch.
Who cares? ‘Dirty’ old Labour and it’s publicly-funded blogs are gone come November 8…wonder who the Opposition will be once the party implodes?
[lprent: Your previous pseudonym was better - I liked the pie part. BTW: This blog site is paid for me. That makes it private property not public. The NZLP has been around for over 90 years and is still going very strong, it will be interesting to see what your comments are when they win the treasury benches again. ]
Draco TB and Barnsley Bill.
Fucking hell, I’ve just gone back to your comments. Blame it on the snarky bastard hang over….maybe not. Sorry you guys. I must have been halluci-reading or something.
i am being provocative or giving myself range to indulge inn the satirical?
On your own blog MB you can do what ever you like, knock yourself out, it won’t bother me at all. But if you come here and deliver little homilies about not smearing other people, then expect to be called on your hypocrisy.
And as for your banana republic line for goodness sake, go for a little walk, or do whatever it is that you do to calm down. NZ hasn’t been in danger of being a banana republic since we got rid of Muldoon. If you have valid points to make on your blog you won’t be doing them any favours by losing them in the kind of juvenile nonsense I linked to above.
I feel like I’ve missed the boat on this thread, but having popped out of the country for a couple of days and already missing my politics fix I thought I’d comment anyway.
I agree SP, there is a difference between negative campaigning and dirty campaigning. I would categorise them differently, with different categories. I agree that telling either broad truths about your opponent, or emphasising what are clearly reasonable, albeit arguable summaries of your opponents weaknesses, is negative campaigning. Examples of this might be Helen Clark saying “John Key isn’t committed to kiwisaver”, or National responding: “Labour can’t be trusted to deliver tax cuts”.
I think a clear example of negative campaigning was the pamphlet the Exclusive Brethren sent out in the 2005 election. From memory the EBs made about fourteen key assertions about Green Party policy, of which seven were factually hard to dispute, six were hyperbolic but reasonably arguable debating points, and one a difficult claim to justify. More on that soon.
Where negative campaigning uses extreme hyperbole to create fear among, or prejudice against a certain group of vulnerable people, I would call that dirty campaigning. That’s the below-the-belt stuff. Sending a fake eviction notice to state house tenants from a would-be National Party minister is a classic example of that.
Pretty much any campaigning that drags a politician’s family into the debate is just plain dirty. Trevor Mallard was guilty of this with his disgraceful comments in Parliament about Don Brash a couple of years ago. Likewise, some of the filth put around about Helen Clark falls into the same category. The snow-job on Colin Moyle some thirty years ago the same.
Anything defamatory is dirty. If you can’t defend it in court, then you shouldn’t be saying it. The smear on John McCain is a good example of this.
I think a further example of dirty campaigning is negative campaigning that has come about through the use of dirty tricks. Using stolen or private correspondence to attack your opponent falls into this group. So too is being dishonest about the motive for the campaign.
This is where the Exclusive Brethren campaign in 2005 moved from negative to dirty. They were dishonest about their identities. They claimed to be merely a half-dozen concerned businessmen, and gave false addresses. Any reading of their material demonstrated that they were trying to encourage voters to vote for, or against, a party or a group of parties. Trying to be cute by claiming otherwise made it dirty.
Rochelle Rees’ google-bomb attempt almost crossed over from negative to dirty, because she was dishonest about her political affiliations. She is no more a neutral, interested observer than the Exclusive Brethren were. Her google-bomb was intended to encourage people not to vote for John Key, because she supports, presumably, the LPG group. It doesn’t matter whether she’s still affiliated to a particular political party. She is affiliated, as the Exclusive Brethren were, to a group of parties by taking the approach she did.
I say almost crossed over, because I don’t personally see google-bombing, the way she did, as anything more than a prank from a young radical. I thought it was funny at the time. It also simply isn’t effective. Who, really, would google the word “clueless” in a New Zealand domain, and press the “I feel lucky” button? I just can’t see it as having any influence on voters, fullstop. It has been reported all over the show in NZ media, but I can’t imagine why anybody would go googling the word “clueless” in New Zealand, and then click that button to bring up the result.
Further, calling somebody “clueless” is hardly defamatory. It’s like google-bombing Helen Clark as, let’s say for argument’s sake, “green-eyed”. How many people would actually google that expression?
If somebody had google-bombed John Key with something downright horrible, with an expression that might actually be searched, like “rapist”, then that would be dirty.
On the whole, though, I think this stuff is self-regulating. Constant negative campaigning, or any dirty campaigning, tends to fall pretty flat with voters.
“Given his background in Merrill Lynch, which has just gone belly up, I would have thought New Zealanders would come to the conclusion you wouldn’t put a man like that in charge of New Zealand’s economy,’ says Finance Minter Michael Cullen.
Negative, dirty or just plain desperate ?
And then there is….Merril Lynch bought for bargain basement price by Bank of America who are down 20%, Lehman Brothers gone, $40 billion attempted rescue package for AIG, Bank of England throwing £5 billion at the banks, NZ’s Australian banks exposed to sub-prime loans….
Is it still too premature to gather the gear for a party?
$40 billion attempted rescue package for AIG, Bank of England throwing £5 billion at the banks
F*ckn welfare parasites…
On the bright side (of the dark side?) anyone willing to make a bet that the US brings down the global economy stands to make a killing – as long as they GO SHORT!
Oh. And any idea how the US is going to fund it’s next war given all this?
And in a nice wee slight of hand…Bank of America buys Merril Lynch; transfers its bad debts into Merril Lynch. Merril Lynch goes bankrupt and Bank of America walks away.
Think I can do the same; set up a subsidiary of myself and transfer my student debt?
Bill: It (almost) worked for Enron.
Amazing the ways you can make money if you have a little bit of knowledge about how the corporate world works.
Captcha: Mistake smallest (It certainly wasn’t!)
Ah yes Enron the Godfathers of Kyoto and carbon trading.
Ah dear…”The extra Bank of England funds were almost five times oversubscribed by banks, which put in bids totalling £24.1 billion..”
And on top of the $40 billion Merill Lynch buy out “a consortium of commercial and investments banks have also agreed to extend 70 US billion dollars of credit.”
Makes you wonder (maybe).
And the Nats want to borrow how much? From where? At what cost? Go Nat!
HS: Enron got up to some considerably dodgy shit, but mostly they failed because they had terrible accounting practices and flat-out lied to the public about their (non-existent) profits. There’s a reason that their accounting firm, previously among the top 5 in the US(PWC, DeLoitte, KPMG etc), folded when Enron did.
I don’t really see what that has to do with carbon trading on an open market.
What’s the bet that the Nats $50 per week tax cut will disappear because of “global economic factors” around December 2008?