The United States mid term Elections

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, November 9th, 2014 - 86 comments
Categories: us politics - Tags: ,

The US mid term elections were held this week and the general consensus amongst the main stream media is that the Democrats and in particular Barack Obama were humiliated. In the senate the Republicans gained seven seats and two further seats are still in play. They have a clear majority. In Congress the Republicans reinforced an existing majority. Obama faces two years where he has no control over either house.

I feel a bit sorry for him because he has been blamed for the result. He is not the only left leader in the world (in the very broadest sense of the term) to be facing pressure. In the United Kingdom Ed Milliband is under some pressure and elsewhere in the western world progressives are also struggling. There is this tension between playing the political game and winning support by triangulating issues and keeping support with the base and energising ordinary people with the promise of real change. It is clearly difficult if not impossible to do both.

What happened in the US? The reports are that young and latinos did not vote. This problem also occurred in the 2010 mid term elections. Maybe the Democrats will always struggle if there is not a presidential election happening at the same time to energise turnout. And maybe leaders need to deliver on the hope and change that Obama promised.

The impression I have is that Obama has struggled at both edges of his support. The right were attacking him for Obamacare which I think is a wonderful policy. When senior Republicans suggest that he is responsible for the appearance of Ebola in the United States you realise that things have turned really weird. And the opposition to doing anything about climate change suggests to me a level of belligerence and stupidity that cannot be matched and that is deeply damaging to humanity’s future interests.

The news is not all bad. Five US states had votes on whether or not there should be an increase in the minimum wage. Each proposal passed convincingly. These were not necessarily liberal states either. The results were Alaska (69:31), Arkansas (66:34), Illinois (67:33), Nebraska (59:41), and South Dakota (55:45). Three of these states returned Republican senators. Those basic decent policies can win every time no matter what is happening at a political level.

Ad submitted a guest post that expressed things far more eloquently than I could. Here it is …

The scale of the recent defeat by the U.S. Democrats resonates with the pounding Labour and Labor took in NZ and Australian elections this year. It’s rare to see parallel scales of defeat, common failings, and common lessons. Reviews months ahead becomes mere exercises in nostalgia.
Neither Labour, Labor, nor Democrats had a coherent set of policies, none were sold well, and all three political leaders were competent but quick to compromise. Resultant NZ government, federal Australian government, and U.S. Senate and Representative houses are shaping up as far more conservative than we’ve seen for decades. Across the western world we’re shut out, and it’s cold out here.

This is despite core policies associated with the losers working well and being remarkably popular. Obamacare has performed well. As has Kiwisaver. Nor was there lack of support for policies to campaign on. New Zealand’s public resoundingly opposed asset sales, and supported the Capital Gains Tax. U.S. state by state support for minimum wage increases was massive, even in staunchly conservative states.

Obama has two months and two years to govern, but his track record of egregious compromise has damaged any future legacy he might have and damaged his party such that by 2016 Republicans could well run all three governmental layers. Labour’s incoherence to the public remains such that National could run both New Zealand and Auckland within a single party by 2016. Did I mention the cold?

Looking back on Gough Whitlam, LBJ, or Clark, we can see that truly pathbreaking strides in Australia, the U.S., or New Zealand are highly concentrated in a few brief windows of overwhelming progressive dominance. We now also know that lasting progress depends on building on those foundations, and protecting them from erosion until the next opportunity for advancement presents itself. Through bold and quickly enacted policy, millions of lives were changed for the better.

At some point the left (broadly) will win again. We need a coalition primed for an uncompromising agenda push. The legacy of that first successful term will ensure the left’s revival for years afterward, and will spur us on to form a further clearly communicated and uncompromising policy enacted within that first window after election. After that, fate’s doors close hard. Democrats, Labour and Labour are all of us dealing with the aftermath of corrosive and sustained compromise, and that’s right across most aspiring progressive/left/social democratic parties in the world.

Voters have told the Democrats, Labour and Labor that we need no more fantasies that compromise will win the public back to our causes. What commenters see as over-defined or prescriptive, the public will read as clear and principled. We need more of clear and principled. It will win the public and it will win the media, and it will win the next term after that. That does not need to be confused with radical. We simply need to be uncompromising and clear, both to gain electoral power, and to sustain it once more. We’ll all be learning that for a while, out here in the cold.

86 comments on “The United States mid term Elections ”

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  1. BM 1
    9 November 2014 at 9:03 am

    At some point the left (broadly) will win again. We need a coalition primed for an uncompromising agenda push. The legacy of that first successful term will ensure the left’s revival for years afterward, and will spur us on to form a further clearly communicated and uncompromising policy enacted within that first window after election.

    That paragraph is the reason the left won’t be elected for a very long time.

    • mickysavage 1.1
      9 November 2014 at 9:10 am

      Thanks for your advice BM.

      I presume you would prefer Labour to go back to the good old days where Rogernomics reigned supreme.

      • BM 1.1.1
        9 November 2014 at 9:22 am

        No, but I certainly don’t want radical change when the left get elected, massive change is bad for the country.

        For me that’s one of the reason Key has been so successful, he came in after nine years of Helen Clark and was smart enough to realize that labour had been in government because the voters liked some of their policies.
        National was labour light and for a very good reason.

        What he’s done is gradually pull NZ from the left to a more right wing mindset and he’s done it in a way where people have barely noticed, so it’s now become the norm for most people.

        Any radical change you guys propose will flow directly against mainstream NZ and your new left wing government will be lucky to survive a term.

        • Ad 1.1.1.1
          9 November 2014 at 9:31 am

          There are plenty of times the New Zealand public have voted for a clear and strong change in policy direction. You know that if you passed Year 11 Social Studies. And they will again, if a good majority of them believe it is warranted.

          • BM 1.1.1.1.1
            9 November 2014 at 9:41 am

            Yes, when governments have basically destroyed themselves.

            Unless National implodes and Key goes mad I don’t think radical change is what the people will really want.

            I think this is one of the major hurdles that the left face, all the left parties are full to the brim with old activists who’s thinking is out there on the fringe and completely disconnected from the mainstream voter.

            • Ad 1.1.1.1.1.1
              9 November 2014 at 10:59 am

              Being in power for its own sake is the preserve of the conservative end of politics.

              Being in power to change things is the natural impulse of the Left.

              Clearly you missed some of the subtext of the post above:

              In politics it doesn’t matter if you get in for three terms, or one term.
              In politics, for the left, it matters if you can look back and show real progress.

              -Whitlam “exploded”. And did more for reforming Australia than 6 terms of the Liberals.
              – LBJ “exploded”. And did more for reforming the U.S. progressively than anyone before him since Roosevelt.
              – Clark’s best days, even, were over once the ideological propulsion of the Alliance “exploded”.
              – Big Norm “exploded” by dying. But he’s still the bellwether of NZ’s international idealism.
              etc. etc. Which is my point about third form social studies.

              Cunliffe forgot that lesson. Clark in her third term had forgotten it. Obama never understood it.

              It’s simply time the Left understood that bold policy with no compromise is the only way to get the voter public’s respect back.

              • chris73 …
                9 November 2014 at 11:06 am

                I really hope you’re advising Labour because that’s the surest way to get National re-elected

                • Ad …
                  9 November 2014 at 11:09 am

                  The evidence from many elections in both NZ’s past, in the US, and in Britain, proves you wrong.

                  • chris73 …
                    9 November 2014 at 11:16 am

                    It was also believed governments lost popularity yet National got more votes this time round also it was believed a political party would never govern alone in MMP yet again National came within a smidgeon of making it happen

                    The people of NZ do not want bold policy with no compromise, NZ wants left of center or right of center

                    • Ad …
                      9 November 2014 at 11:18 am

                      National will remain dominant until there is a real and compelling political reason to put someone else in. There is no motivation from the public to replace one beige bunch with another.

                    • chris73 …
                      9 November 2014 at 11:33 am

                      There is no motivation from the public to replace one beige bunch with another.

                      – If that were true National wouldn’t have gotten elected, all Labour has to do is show NZ they’re united, know their policies and will only pull NZ to left of center not NZ as it was in the 70s

                      They do that they’ll get elected

                    • felix …
                      9 November 2014 at 9:18 pm

                      “it was believed a political party would never govern alone in MMP yet again National came within a smidgeon of making it happen”

                      Another way of saying that is that according to you guys, National won the best win ever like the massive winners they are, and yet they still can’t govern alone.

                    • Matthew Whitehead …
                      11 November 2014 at 12:09 am

                      National has probably lost popularity among the general public, but has massively motivated its base, and has the support of the soft vote as they do not perceive Labour as a united party, and therefore do not perceive them as a credible government.

            • Tom Jackson 1.1.1.1.1.2
              9 November 2014 at 12:10 pm

              The problem with this is that the mainstream voter is now tending towards crazy idiocy.

              When senior Republicans suggest that he is responsible for the appearance of Ebola in the United States you realise that things have turned really weird. And the opposition to doing anything about climate change suggests to me a level of belligerence and stupidity that cannot be matched and that is deeply damaging to humanity’s future interests.

              If parties can get elected saying stuff like that, then we’re truly through the looking glass, and left wing parties could promise the most sober, reality-based policies imaginable and still not get elected.

              • Ad …
                9 November 2014 at 12:16 pm

                What I think you are heading towards is the trick of a Left populism.
                It’s a hard trick to pull off, and there’s plenty of US party films about it (e.g. Bob Roberts, Mr Smith Goes to Washington), but it has been done (e.g. the Chilean “No” campaign against Pinochet’s referendum).

                Bob Harvey’s bell jar illustrations nearly got there.

                I see theming and packing as a neglected Leftie skill, but quite different to the lessons of the current electoral year.

                • Tom Jackson …
                  9 November 2014 at 2:10 pm

                  If it’s just going to be duping people through populism, then there’s no point keeping democracy other than to keep people feeling as if they are in control.

            • Murray Rawshark 1.1.1.1.1.3
              9 November 2014 at 8:13 pm

              Key is already mad with power. He thinks he is above morality and law. We all have feet of clay, but I think in his case the clay goes up to the armpits. Once people turn, his fall will be rapid. They’ll be more bitter than a husband who finds his wife has been unfaithful with the boss who just fired him.

        • chris73 1.1.1.2
          9 November 2014 at 11:05 am

          +100 BM

    • dave brown 1.2
      9 November 2014 at 11:03 am

      The reason that the left doesn’t win in the US is the Koch Bros.
      And that is why the Democrats have to compete for big money to win.
      95% of successful elections spend the most money.
      The game is not only rigged, the game is entertainment.
      Note the interview with Robert Kennedy Jnr on the Keiser Report
      http://rt.com/shows/keiser-report/203427-episode-max-keiser-677/
      Like NZ the majority supports left of centre economics.
      Politics however is owned by the ruling class.
      Capitalist democracy is a myth.
      Workers democracy is the answer.

  2. Ad 2
    9 November 2014 at 9:20 am

    BM you need to demonstrate knowledge of why Left-type governments are almost always different to Right-type governments. It will help you when commenting on this site.

  3. Bill 3
    9 November 2014 at 9:50 am

    And again…(I mean, fuck, I’m almost boring myself with this constant repetition of the bleeding obvious)… Miliband’s Labour, that is not a million miles away from NZ Labour, struggles to compete with the Tories in a UK context, but is arguably about to disappear where it’s pitted against a genuine social democratic left (The SNP in Scotland).

    And…again. The SNP won an absolute majority in an MMP environment on a turnout of around 50% before any independence referendum was on the table and are presently the third largest party in the UK on membership numbers (80 000+ members from a population base similar to NZs ).

    The parliamentary left tanking has nothing to do with either a non-sympathetic media or low voter turnout; the parliamentary left is doing crap because it’s crap.

    • ghostwhowalksnz 3.1
      9 November 2014 at 6:56 pm

      Give them time and the SNP will be crap too !

      Wait till Salmond goes to Westminister and has to be Labours poodle in government.

      • Bill 3.1.1
        9 November 2014 at 7:42 pm

        You’re aware of that poll taken after Lamont’s resignation that indicated 50+ SNP mps voted into Westminster from Scotland against 4 or 5 Labour mps? Now sure, that poll was a one off at a particular time. But regardless, how or why would SNP mps in Westminster be Labour poodles? That assertion makes no sense.

        And of course the SNP will be crap too. All parliamentary parties go through a cycle that includes a dull conservative phase where they betray their roots. The trick is in being resurgent as opposed to dead.

        • Colonial Rawshark 3.1.1.1
          10 November 2014 at 3:44 pm

          But regardless, how or why would SNP mps in Westminster be Labour poodles? That assertion makes no sense.

          Because in traditional Labour’s way of thinking (both here and in the UK), all “minor” left wing parties have to be subservient to Labour, as it Labour the “natural home” of the political left. Or some such.

  4. hoom 4
    9 November 2014 at 11:20 am

    To categorise Obama as Left really does a disservice to the term Left.

    Similarly to categorise the Republicans as Conservative is a disservice to real Conservatives.
    Neo-con are not Conservatives, they are very radical which is the opposite of Conservative.

    The problem with Obama is that he was the big Hope for Change from the creeping further & further Corporate Right Neo-Con crap.
    Yet he either was really a Neo-Con in hiding or has been utterly captured by them.

    The Change that Obama has brought is a restart of the Cold War & a whole heap of new small wars rather than the peace he promised & won Nobel prize for.
    Domestically corporate neo-cons are even more powerful, the Billionaires far richer, the poor even more poor, freedoms eroded & the criminals who caused the GFC unpunished.

    And thats the ‘good guy’ so who are you going to vote for in protest?

    • Ad 4.1
      9 November 2014 at 11:25 am

      Agreed, but each country has a different sliding scale from left to right.

      Even taking that into account, there are common lessons to be drawn right at this historical moment.

      • Colonial Rawshark 4.1.1
        10 November 2014 at 3:52 pm

        The “sliding scale” metaphor is good, but neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party is worth supporting with even a single dollar or minute of time. Supporting a less far right party to get in, in order to prevent a more far right party getting in, is a waste of time and energy.

        And either consciously or unconsciously knowing that, that’s why the commoners stay at home.

        • Ad 4.1.1.1
          10 November 2014 at 8:25 pm

          You may feel differently if you lived there.
          There aren’t any easy choices – in fact they are getting narrower and harder.

          • Colonial Rawshark 4.1.1.1.1
            13 November 2014 at 6:27 pm

            In the US there is the choice of supporting independent or Green Party candidates, but those options are rendered totally invisible and impotent by the corporate MSM. The Democratic Party will go so far as to attack and cut down truly progressive independent candidates like Ralph Nader, because they show up the Democratic Party for who they really are.

  5. Michael 5
    9 November 2014 at 11:41 am

    The US Democrats also have voter turnout and gerrymandering to deal with. For example, in the 2010 House elections, only 40.9% of people turned out. (A majority of the rich turn out and the poor don’t.) And the Democrats actually won the popular vote, however the Republicans took a majority in the House due to gerrymandering and FPTP.
    And let’s not forget that $3.7 billion was spent, with a lot of it by corporations, on the 2014 elections. (!) And guess who has the most money to spend? The right.

    • joe90 5.1
      9 November 2014 at 11:47 am

      Same old.

      Propane Jane ‏@docrocktex26

      This is what 2.8 million extremists making decisions for a state of 28 million ppl looks like. Fucking insane. #TXGov

      https://twitter.com/docrocktex26/status/530801997931610112

    • Ad 5.2
      9 November 2014 at 12:02 pm

      Other than further redistricting (which is now entrenched through recent Supreme Court decisions), what do you think would concisely increase voter turnout?

      • ghostwhowalksnz 5.2.1
        9 November 2014 at 6:50 pm

        changing to a sat election date. A lot of people are at work on a Tuesday.

        • Colonial Rawshark 5.2.1.1
          10 November 2014 at 4:47 pm

          Nobody in power or with money wants to increase election turnouts. The aim is to decrease voter turnout. Ensuring large numbers of people were disenfranchised was a primary goal of the “Founding Fathers.”

    • Colonial Rawshark 5.3
      10 November 2014 at 3:38 pm

      And guess who has the most money to spend? The right.

      The Democrats are also Right wing, and since Clinton gave in to banking and corporate interests, Democratic fund raising is often neck and neck with the Republicans.

      • Ad 5.3.1
        10 November 2014 at 8:22 pm

        Every nations political spectrum shifts over time – ours sure has and is.

        • Colonial Rawshark 5.3.1.1
          13 November 2014 at 6:19 pm

          I prefer the physics approach to spectra. If you’ve moved out of infra-red into the blue end of the spectrum, then you’re blue, and not infra-red any more.

      • Michael 5.3.2
        12 November 2014 at 5:21 pm

        That’s true, although there are factions in the Democrats.

        There’s the “centrist” Democrats (which are on the right in actuality i.e. Clinton), and the “Progressive Caucus”, which are decent social democrats with an actual left agenda. (For example, Elizabeth Warren).

        Here’s a very good conversation between Elizabeth Warren and Thomas Pikkety: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tMXA9slQo4 – Elizabeth is the de facto leader of the Progressive faction, and many Democrats want to see her run in 2016.

        There was another video (I forget where), where she addressed unions, and she had the union members standing on their seats clapping! There is a credible left faction in the Democratic party, but it only controls about 1/3 of the party which isn’t a lot.

  6. Ad 6
    9 November 2014 at 12:11 pm

    There is no motivation from the public to replace one beige bunch with another.

    – If that were true National wouldn’t have gotten elected, all Labour has to do is show NZ they’re united, know their policies and will only pull NZ to left of center not NZ as it was in the 70s

    They do that they’ll get elected

    (sorry run out of Reply function)

    Unity is the political baby-steps to political success.
    Labour in NZ have to achieve, in order:
    – Unity, then
    – Bold Policy, then
    – Passion, then
    – Funding, then
    – New Candidates, then
    – Campaign Platform

    I am not trying in the post above to roll out the entire renewal platform for Labour here.
    What I am showing is a few common lessons to the Left right now, and right across many other democracies.

    • chris73 6.1
      9 November 2014 at 12:18 pm

      You do know that what you’ve said is far more demoralizing to left wing supporters then anything I could come up with

      For Labour (especially) Unity is a herculean task by itself but add in funding and a campaign platform…

      • Ad 6.1.1
        9 November 2014 at 12:22 pm

        As I point out above, this is about the worst electoral year the global left has had in multiple decades. The task is still the task.

        • Colonial Rawshark 6.1.1.1
          10 November 2014 at 5:58 pm

          And what if both the organisation and the organisational culture is not fit for purpose? Those steps you have listed are merely the ABCs of winning (excuse the pun) but Labour struggles to even put two ticks on its election signs, let alone anything more complex.

          • Ad 6.1.1.1.1
            10 November 2014 at 8:20 pm

            Either:
            Refuse to learn lessons and retreat from political activism, realising that Labour will continue without us

            Or:
            Start your own, knowing the risks are high and likely rewards v small

            Or:
            Reform from within.

            Which comes closer for you?

  7. barry 7
    9 November 2014 at 12:26 pm

    I think there is not much equivalence between what happened in America to whathappened in NZ/Australia. Obama is not really left he just looks like that compared to the crazies that captured the Republican party.

    It looks like the Republicans have tamed the tea party a little bit so that they are not so scary, but really the story of these midterms is the low turnout. Basically Democrat supporters couldn’t see any reason to bother voting this time.

  8. TheContrarian 8
    9 November 2014 at 1:38 pm

    Say hello to one of the new GOP lawmakers:

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/anti-gay-gordon-klingenschmitt-elected-colorado-house

    John Key is positively angelic by comparison. The USA is, by no small measure, fucked.

  9. Chooky 9
    9 November 2014 at 2:21 pm

    From the American horses’ (commentators’) mouths on the mid term Elections

    http://rt.com/shows/crosstalk/202943-obama-elections-us-government/

    “What is widely deemed as a resounding victory for the GOP and humiliating personal defeat for Barack Obama, this cycle of mid-term elections leave the Republicans in charge of legislative branch of government. Will this change anything in Washington?”

    CrossTalking with Don DeBar, Daniel Faraci and Stephen Yates.

  10. joe90 10
    9 November 2014 at 5:00 pm

    Eisenhower called it.

    .

    The voters who put Barack Obama in office expected some big changes. From the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping to Guantanamo Bay to the Patriot Act, candidate Obama was a defender of civil liberties and privacy, promising a dramatically different approach from his predecessor.

    But six years into his administration, the Obama version of national security looks almost indistinguishable from the one he inherited. Guantanamo Bay remains open. The NSA has, if anything, become more aggressive in monitoring Americans. Drone strikes have escalated. Most recently it was reported that the same president who won a Nobel Prize in part for promoting nuclear disarmament is spending up to $1 trillion modernizing and revitalizing America’s nuclear weapons.

    http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/10/18/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-change/jVSkXrENQlu8vNcBfMn9sL/story.html

    .

    The Deep State is the big story of our time. It is the red thread that runs through the war on terrorism, the financialization and deindustrialization of the American economy, the rise of a plutocratic social structure and political dysfunction. Washington is the headquarters of the Deep State, and its time in the sun as a rival to Rome, Constantinople or London may be term-limited by its overweening sense of self-importance and its habit, as Winwood Reade said of Rome, to “live upon its principal till ruin stared it in the face.” “Living upon its principal,” in this case, means that the Deep State has been extracting value from the American people in vampire-like fashion.

    http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/

  11. Murray Rawshark 11
    9 November 2014 at 8:09 pm

    “Looking back on Gough Whitlam, LBJ, or Clark, we can see that truly pathbreaking strides in Australia, the U.S., or New Zealand are highly concentrated in a few brief windows of overwhelming progressive dominance.”

    WTF? The Clark government entrenched a lot of the main ideas of Rogernomics and made them respectable. It did very little to even roll back the absurdities of Douglas and Richardson. Goff closed schools. WFF meant that a line was drawn down the middle of the working class, with beneficiaries forever defined as somehow less worthy. WFF also meant that employers got to keep more of the profits, as the taxpayer topped up wages. Helen also ran such a tight ship with everything centred on her, that the remaining non-entities (with few exceptions) didn’t have a clue what to do once she’d gone.

    LBJ did a fair bit domestically, but will always suffer from what Kennedy leaving him with Vietnam. His influence on Latin America was also far from benign. I don’t think either of these two can be compared with Gough Whitlam.

    • DS 11.1
      10 November 2014 at 3:55 am

      Helen Clark was Labour’s Keith Holyoake: a long-serving pragmatist who basically governed within an overarching consensus (in Holyoake’s case it was the social-democratic consensus, in Clark’s case it was neoliberal). Certainly, both were electorally successful, but neither transformed (or even sought to transform) the country they governed.

      • Ad 11.1.1
        10 November 2014 at 5:44 pm

        Note I specifically focussed on Clark’s first term and attributed its strength to the Alliance-Labour coalition agreement. Once the Alliance collapsed, so did the force and conviction of the government.

      • Murray Rawshark 11.1.2
        10 November 2014 at 6:30 pm

        Yep. I spoke with her briefly in 1985 and she was of the view then that a government was powerless to change very much. She was hardly going to be a crusader with that attitude.

  12. boyonlaptop 12
    10 November 2014 at 3:17 pm

    “New Zealand’s public resoundingly opposed asset sales, and supported the Capital Gains Tax.

    We need a coalition primed for an uncompromising agenda push.”

    So I am glad to hear you’ll be ranking Little last then? Considering he wants to scrap CGT and NZ Power?

    • Ad 12.1
      10 November 2014 at 5:42 pm

      How do you draw the conclusion that this post favours any Labour leadership candidate?
      Or are you simply seeking to derail the post?

      • boyonlaptop 12.1.1
        10 November 2014 at 7:58 pm

        Because the author is a staffer of David Cunliffe and has been supportive of Little on other posts on here? Plus I don’t see how this derails the post at all when the post explicitly mentions the NZLP.

        • Ad 12.1.1.1
          10 November 2014 at 8:15 pm

          Neither writer has been a “staffer”.

          I don’t favour any candidate.

          The post isn’t about the leadership contest. There are other posts on that.

          It is about common lessons from common international movements.

    • bruhaha 12.2
      10 November 2014 at 6:12 pm

      Scrap NZ Power? Really? Stop making stuff up. I’m amazed at how many of Grant Robertson’s supporters are now targeting Little with smears. I’ve heard it in the real world in the last few days as well as on social media.

      It has been a really clean race up until now. I’m starting to wonder if Robertson’s team is feeling like victory is slipping away and have decided to start playing dirty. I really hope not. We need unity after all of this.

      • boyonlaptop 12.2.1
        10 November 2014 at 8:01 pm

        “Little signalled a major shift in direction if he won the leadership, including the likely ditching of unpopular policies such as raising the pension age.

        At a press conference today, the former union boss also signalled a rethink of a capital gains tax, power reforms and free doctor visits for over-65s.”
        http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10597711/Andrew-Little-confirms-Labour-leadership-bid

        Not making anything up, wish I was.

        Totally agree we need unity after this and will happily support Little for PM in 2017 should he win but lets not whitewash over some pretty nasty dog-whistle politics. Little himself has definitely presented himself well thus far but unfortunately the same can’t be said for a minority of his/Cunliffe supporters.

        • bruhaha 12.2.1.1
          10 November 2014 at 9:08 pm

          Little has said he wants all the policy reviewed. You’re spinning. It’s unpleasant and I don’t believe you will support Little if he wins.

          With this claim and the false claim Mickey Savage is a Cunliffe staffer you’ve shown a distinct lack of good faith twice in one comment thread. That doesn’t engender any trust in you at all when it comes to unity.

          • boyonlaptop 12.2.1.1.1
            11 November 2014 at 2:49 am

            Oh that’s completely disingenuous to suggest he doesn’t want the CGT or NZ power scrapped. It’s exactly the same language Cunliffe used about reviewing the GST on fruit and vegetables as well as the tax free threshold when he ran. He’s used the same language in referring to NZ Power as he has to the CGT which he referred to yesterday “enough to stop people even considering what we have to say any more.” The CGT is a progressive well thought out concept and Little all but suggesting it is the reason Labour isn’t in government is narrow-minded and concerning.

            Sorry, he worked for Cunliffe in establishing a trust for the leadership election and was actively involved in Cunliffe’s campaign for the leadership. Not that there’s anything wrong with that at all but he has worked for Cunliffe and as I’ve said has frequently defended Little on here to suggest that the leadership race isn’t relevant to this piece is ludicrous.

  13. Sable 13
    10 November 2014 at 5:17 pm

    Interesting article but I think you will find the real problem is Obama looks more like a Republican than a Democrat. Guantanamo Bay was to be closed, the Patriot Act given its marching orders and the general warmongering and cruelty of the Bush years abolished.

    This has not happened. Indeed drone strikes have increased and Obama has instigated more global conflict/antagonism (some of them-Russia and China potentially very serious) than his predecessor.

    Its the same issue we have in NZ and the same issue in the UK. The divide of philosophy between the so called left and right of politics has blurred leaving people disillusioned and disgusted with the whole process.

    • Ad 13.1
      10 November 2014 at 5:41 pm

      It’s indeed pretty easy to confuse left-right spectrums from one country to the next.

      The job’s harder since almost all left parties worldwide post Berlin Wall have got softer, and with far less principle against which to evaluate them.

      But Labour, Labor and the Democrats remain the default option as dominant party against conservative parties. They remain united by what they are against.

      Of course, that’s a further part of the problem, but there’s only so much one can address in one post.

      For a more thorough exploration of the above, have a good go at Tony Judt, “Ill Fares the Land”. Pretty fantastic.

      • Colonial Rawshark 13.1.1
        10 November 2014 at 5:54 pm

        But Labour, Labor and the Democrats remain the default option as dominant party against conservative parties. They remain united by what they are against.

        Whose default though? Ever shrinking numbers, by the sounds of it. Ed Milliband has got a bullseye on his forehead now; his senior caucus members want him gone, just months before a general election.

        In the final analysis it’s not our job to prop up dead political establishments who no longer represent the interests of the mass of people; it’s our job to torpedo them.

        • Ad 13.1.1.1
          10 November 2014 at 8:09 pm

          From the poll out today by UMR, Labour is the default opposition.
          Not saying its socialism, just the default opposition to Natiobal.

  14. Brian Biggins 14
    11 November 2014 at 7:41 am

    Who do the voters get their political messages from? The MSM. The NZ MSM is confirmed as supporting right wing political parties/government. Witness the MSM attacks during Clarks reign for pathetic reasons such as signed paintings, eco-light bulbs, smacking (Nanny state), but complete silence or cheerleading on issues that will negatively influence NZ now, and in the future, such as asset sales, external deficit blowout, cooking the stats, dirty politics…the list goes on. If the messenger is allowed to continue with the propaganda, I believe the left have a big problem.

  15. Brutus Iscariot 15
    12 November 2014 at 2:10 pm

    It’s laughable to suggest that the Democrats are a progressive party, or that Obama is a progressive President. Both major parties are controlled by business interests and beholden to the deep state.

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