Is this election year going to be the most vicious in recent history?
There’s always a bit of argy-bargy in politics, and sometimes it’s personal. Despite the best of intentions, it’s impossible for people’s families and backgrounds to never be part of the conversation, because often they themselves bring it up – whether it’s John Key growing up in a state house or David Cunliffe being the son of a country minister, Holly Walker talking about her own experiences of motherhood, Darien Fenton speaking publicly about her past struggle with addiction, the personal story is everywhere in politics. And sometimes this means it gets turned into a weapon by the other side (whichever side you’re on.)
But there’s surely a line between personal attacks which can maybe be excused by the political argument behind them, and, well, just plain calling someone an idiot, or a “sensitive wee sausage”.
And I don’t know why the National Party have decided to cross that line, multiple times, in the past week. I really don’t know why John Key would cross it today after the Mean-Girls-style attack on Metiria Turei backfired, getting her pride of place on Campbell Live having a nice chat about how normal and inoffensive she is.
The first assumption is desperation. Are National seeing bad internal polling? Have they run out of policy ideas?
The second is more Machiavellian. Is there some cunning long game in play? Is it the political equivalent of a Guy Ritchie film where all the seemingly random threads will tie together in an astounding knockdown conclusion?
I honestly don’t know. So let’s hash it out in the comments!
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