The John Key brand used to have a couple of big advantages. First, he was successfully sold as different, not an ordinary politician. Second, he was sold as positive, sunny, optimistic, a nice guy. Well, the first advantage crumbled under the weight of repeated lies, “brain-fades”, and attacks on the media. Now the second is on its way out too. Key has gone negative. Check out the latest example:
Labour, Greens in lockstep to far left: PM
Prime Minister John Key says the economy is in pretty good nick, but he claims the Green Party’s involvement in a future government could see “all hell break loose”.
The National Party leader made the comments during a speech on the economy delivered to a BNZ-hosted client event in South Auckland this afternoon. … Having delivered a brief summary of the country’s economic outlook, Key hit out at political rivals. …
“If you want my blunt view of what’s happening at the moment, Labour have decided to lock step with the Greens and go very far left.” If there was a change in government tomorrow, Key trusted the Labour party and its leader, David Shearer, wouldn’t do “stupid” things in China. … But he said the Green Party was another story. Key said his enduring memory of Green co-leader Russel Norman was seeing him “just about get shot” by Chinese protection agents after trying to wrap a Tibetan flag around the then Vice-Premier of China.
So that’s the framing for 2014. The Greens are far left loonies (practically inviting poor innocent security guards to shoot them no less), Labour will be shackled to the Greens, if they get in we’ll see “all hell break loose”. Put it together with recent rants about North Korea and communism and it’s clear that Key has gone hard negative.
Negative is where you go when you don’t have a positive story to tell the electorate. I wonder if the Nats’ internal polling has got Key spooked…
(ht to chat on Twitter – you know who you are…)
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