If the commentary from the MSM is correct then it is all over for Labour. Their plan to demonise John Key has failed and the sneaky Labour sponsored attack on National’s conference has backfired in spectacular fashion.
Duncan Garner who was complicit in those attacks knows this to be true because he finished up his latest post with a sneak preview of the latest TV3 poll that will show Labour not gaining a thing from all of a beat up and subtlely hinting that it was Labour’s plan all along.
So National has been on the front foot this week and that may just help them in the polls. The secret tapes played out badly for National and especially for Bill English. They may take a small hit – but I wouldn’t bet on it. Many voters don’t like how the information was gathered.
So Labour might not do as well out of this as it had hoped. Helen Clark was hoping the ‘secret tapes’ would be a turning point in Labour’s fortunes. If it’s not, what’s her plan now? Does she have one? Labour’s told people how dangerous the Nats are. But perhaps no one’s been listening.
The Dompost suggests that voters like John Key a great deal and are very brown bread on Helen Clark. Labour’s strategy of fear has failed. Strangely though they think that National rising 3 points in the face of Labour’s scurrilous attacks has “barely budged from governing-alone territory in our Fairfax Media-Nielsen poll”. No it hasn’t “barely budged” in fact it is extending its lead. It is Labour that isn’t budging, mired in the low 30′s and looking like sinking under the 30 point mark.
Maybe that voters have switched off after staring Chicken Little-like at the skies for nearly a decade now. That was in response to Labour’s warnings about secret agendas, hollow men and ill winds. The track is too well worn to resonate to the same extent that it did even in 2005, when the National leader at the time, Don Brash, so obligingly cuddled up to the Exclusive Brethren.
And in hard times, voters might prefer to hear something more than that the glass is half-empty and don’t be fooled into believing otherwise.
Tracy Watkins continues the bad publicity for Labour in her column in the DomPost with the leading paragraph describing Labour’s chances at the next election as a rout and intoning that time is just about up for Clark to do something, anything to stop that rout.
And therein lies the problem for Labour. They have no policy. Their plan is appears to be John key is Satan and don’t stuff it up, steady as she goes. The problem they have is that people aren’t listening to that. They are tired of a nasty, vindicitive and plainly ugly Prime Minister intoning that she knows best and to move one.
Perhaps they are taking her at her word and indeed moving on.
John Armstrong as well in The NZ Herald notes that Labour seems to be consumed by its “Secret Agenda” meme. All round though it seems that the media has tumbled to Labour’s single plan and they have noted that it isn’t working. Labour are stuffed if less than 90 days out from and election they are bereft of any ideas except that John Key eats babies and is the anit-Christ.
