9

Turning a Chicken Run into a victory in 2011

by Whaleoil on August 11, 2010

I’ve thought a bit more about The Labour Party Chicken Run. It seems too that other commentators have also and been reading this blog. The MSM is yet to catch onto to these thoughts. Matthew Hooton thinks Phil Goff and Andrew Little need to do a bit of backroom manipulation to orchestrate not three but FOUR by-elections and by winning all four easily there by strengthen Goff’s leadership and stave off the now apparent challenge from David Cunliffe.

I say apparent leadership challenge because firstly Chris Carter alluded to it and now Labour’s own tame churnalist Chris Trotter is endorsing openly the aspirations of David Cunliffe. Let’s put Chris Trotter’s endorsement of David Cunliffe aside for a moment and look at a SWAT analysis if you like of having four contemporaneous by-elections.

Ok the four by-elections should be:

Manurewa - predicated on George Hawkins winning his Local board election. This should happen easily. George Hawkins is well liked in Manurewa.

Te Atatu – Chris Carter needs to go. He needs to go for Phil’s sake and he needs to go for Labour’s sake. Andrew Little and Phil Goff need to agree to drop the disciplinary charges, and beg Helen to find him a cosy little Aids Ambassador’s trough or similar for him to continue his troughing ways. He has said he isn’t go to stand at the next election anyway so best if he moves along.

Mana – Winnie Laban has done the right thing, found a better trough to roll in, and one created specially for her.

Wigram – yes, I mention Wigram, because even though Jim Anderton is nearly dead his continued troughing with four jobs will only hurt Labour. Again Andrew Little’s superior negotiation skills should be able to encourage Jim Anderton to shuffle off so Labour can have their 4 by-elections.

So why do I say Labour should go for four contemporaneous by-elections, well because they are broke, behind in the polls and need a lift. They can win all of those four electorates easily. So winning or potentially losing shouldn’t enter their thought processes. Money is an issue and Labour is in desperate need of it. On the face of it they can’t really afford to fight four by-elections but then as an astute reader pointed out yesterday, by-elections actually raise money for the party. Mt Albert turned a profit and a capable new MP for Labour. Lastly Phil Goff and Labour need some wins on the board. Everything they have done so far has only enabled John Key’s government to extend their lead in the polls.  Nothing looks like winning more than winning. Having four by-elections and winning all four easily would make Phil Goff and Labour look like winners and make next years general election anyone’s for the taking. It would also crush Cunliffe’s dream like tank rolling over a tulip.

This is very important as Cunliffe rolls out his tame churnalists to support him. He is Labour’s Kevin Rudd. No one likes him, he is pompous and an arse. Phil Goff can put him down like a lame dog by grasping the nettle and pushing for four by-elections. Let’s hear no more talk of miracles from Labour along the lines of the Kevin Rudd implosion. That simply isn’t believable of John Key. This plan as outlined above however is reasonable, real, and achievable with only a little bit backroom negotiation and subterfuge.

Having the four by-elections contemporaneously even on the same days just make logistics even easier.

Tagged: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Related posts

  • Pingback: Tweets that mention Turning a Chicken Run into a victory in 2011 -- Topsy.com

  • mediatart

    Well Whale you didnt read my post.
    Only ONE party made money out of the last By election. Thats right Labour had money left over after campaign expenses. National lost money on theirs.
    ACT and the Greens lost money big time. Especailly ACT , to think that Boscawen would even get close was surreal. But like the deluded they throw good money after bad.
    But looks like thats the new line out of the beehive, one election day so it doesnt cost National and Act too much.
    Not likely, you wouldnt want labour to be ahead 4x $20k

    • http://whaleoil.gotcha.co.nz Whaleoil

      Tart, I did read it, sometimes you do shooy yourself in the foot trying to prove me wrong.

      This post is about Labour and based on your extensive and comprehensive research of just one byelection it appears you are right and labour can fill their coffers with byelections. They’ll need everybit of that 80k profit for next year, national on the otherhand will just ask a couple of donors for a “fiddy” each

    • hagues

      tart “Well Whale you didnt read my post.”

      Oh the irony, if you had read Whale’s post then you would have read this line…

      “On the face of it they can’t really afford to fight four by-elections but then as an astute reader pointed out yes­ter­day, by-elections actu­ally raise money for the party.”

      But then again the discription “astute reader” probably threw you off, maybe he was talking about someone else?

  • mediatart

    Sadly Hagues Im only right half the time , on a good day.
    At least we have got away from the idea of OMG , Labours broke so cant afford a bye election- let alone 4.
    Not likely . As it gives 4 times the exposure for labour, as the repeaters just turn up with a camera or tape recorder ( do they still have those) and hey presto a story.
    Maybe they can schedule each of the by elections the same time as John Keys holidays in Hawaii, to spare him the embarassment of avoiding his candidate.
    AS for national just asking for its donors ??? .
    I suppose when Goodfellow topped the poll in spite of your heroic attempts to oust him, finally raising some money should be ‘light work’ of which hes most suited.
    Perhaps he could raid the ‘victory fund’ and leave an IOU like previous National funders Blue Chip did for their investors
    A very political move that one.!! Counting fund raising twice.

  • abjv

    Just did the maths on Anderton. Last election he absorbed 21,000 party votes nationwide and returned one constituency MP. Say Anderton does not stand next election and 20,000 of the party votes go to Labour (the rest get wasted). Labour loses its 3rd party prop-up constituency MP but gains 20,000 party votes, which is about what it takes to gain one more overall MP. Jim standing or not standing next election would be mathematically neutral to Labour.

    Also, if he goes now, the by-election will return a labour constituency MP, so having him stay or go now is also mathematically neutral to Labour.

    If the opportunity arises to get some new blood in now, it must be tempting. Their only problem here, like Mana, is that representing this electorate for Labour is pretty much ‘a job for life’. They would have to pick carefully as, like the Mana replacement, they’re going to be stuck with them for a while.

    But the ‘Tizard’ effect mandates the candidate must be a newbie (someone untested as an MP) or someone rejected previously by the electorate and not presently in parliament.

    WO talks about effort and machinations to recycle Anderton, Carter and whats-his-face from Manurewa. Surely strategically Labour would be better placed if they could persuade Judith to go away, now. That would let them put their more “tested” list MPs into the vacancies that are opening up, rather than having all of these list MPs checkmated by the ‘Tizard’ effect. It would avoid the risk of getting some dufus for the next 15 years in a safe secure seat you can’t later flush them out of.

    (The other option is a list MP resigns, knowing that this means Tizard is back, but sacrificing this for the bigger picture. That removes the checkmate: they then don’t have to worry about it any more, and their senior list MPs can then have a go at possibly up to 4 safe secure seats coming spare)

  • mediatart

    Dream on fellows!
    We are going to drag these things out ….nice and slow.
    Plus the candidates will be all ‘fresh faces’ who get plenty of airtime ( maybe there is ex state house boy cum merchant banker who wants a safe labour seat, it worked once)
    Plus its all pretty safe seats so likely to be a win win win win for labour.
    Plus an extra win for Goff who gets more exposure to boost his poll ratings and keep his job. And if its getting rocky he can allways shot Carter in the head – live on facebook. The ratings !!!

    No way is Hootens idea to ease the pain for national by a mini -general election?
    He must think they are as a sleep as the National cabinet to fall for that one ( One R Hide told us about the sleep walking). The ones awake like Collins and Power are at each others throat.

    Bon appitite

    • http://whaleoil.gotcha.co.nz Whaleoil

      And Tart exposes herself as a Labour Party hackivist.

      We now know that tart isn’t a random commentator.

      “We are going to drag these things out .…nice and slow.” The we being Labour. Why don’t you go the whole hog Tart and out yourself properly otherwise.

      Pedobear is far from awake. The more Collins slaps Power the better this country will be.

      • mediatart

        We are not amused!
        We dont have any connection to the Labour party
        We wouldnt know labour MPs if we passed them in the street, apart from Goff.
        We was used in the same vein as referring to say the All Blacks victory – WE WON.