Headless Chooks
The Liberals are on fire with their ads:
elections
3 years or 4 years? [Poll]
Voters are evenly split over whether or not we should have a 4 year parliamentary term. Personally I prefer a 4 year term, but the old saying goes that 3 years is too short for a good government and 4 years is too long for a bad government.
That said I think we are ill served by the 3 years term, essentially meaning we only get action from our government for about 18 months per term.
Voters are almost evenly split on whether the parliamentary term should be extended from three to four years in the latest poll – a narrow margin believe it should stay at three years despite general agreement among politicians that a move to four is warranted.
Just over half of those asked in a Herald-DigiPoll survey said they believed the three-year term should stay, while 48 per cent believed it should increase to four years. Read more »
Libs latest attack ad
The Liberals are on full attack in Australia, they have just released this attack ad:
This was their ad a couple of days ago as Kevin Rudd attempted his latest coup: Read more »
The Beige Dictatorship
I can’t stand beige politics. Let me explain. Our electoral system is such that people cannot be themselves as politicians, they instead are the politicians that polling and focus groups tell them to be. In a word they are beige.
I have been saying this for a long time. Our politicians have become cerebral, thinking issues through, doing what focus groups think is right rather than what is actually right for the country.
It isn’t a secret that I like gut or visceral politicians, and the blood and guts that results from that.
Blogging is funny, when I start thinking about an issue or a idea often along comes a post somewhere else that helps to cement my thinking. This is the case with the issue of beige politics, and coincidentally it is also the term used. Charlie Stross explains.
Firstly the set up:
Here’s a hypothesis: Representative democracy is what’s happening. Unfortunately, democracy is broken. There’s a hidden failure mode, we’ve landed in it, and we probably won’t be able to vote ourselves out of it.
Representative democratic government is theoretically supposed to deliver certain benefits:
- Firstly, it legitimizes principled, peaceful opposition within the constitutional framework; we have multiple parties, and the party in power doesn’t simply round up the opposition and have them thrown in a GULAG. They concede that the opposition may disagree with the party in power on precisely how the state must operate, but agree that it should operate: the difference is a civilized argument over details, not a knife-fight with totalitarian enemies.
- Secondly, it provides for an organized, peaceful succession mechanism. When a governing faction becomes unpopular, it can be voted out of office, and will go peacefully, knowing that eventually their successors will become unpopular in turn, and there’ll be another chance to take a bite of the apple. (Totalitarian governments tend to hang on until people start shooting at them, with a variety results we’ve recently had a refresher course in — Libya, Syria, Egypt, Iran.)
But. But.
What if the channels through which concerned people of goodwill who want to make things better enter the political process and run for election are fundamentally flawed?
I think representative democracy is flawed. Read more »
Labour Strategy? Shearer for President!
Seen on Reddit today
Shit, Labour. I know Shearer has an image problem but could you tone it down a little?
What is interesting is that Labour are clearly betting the farm on a Presidential Style head-to-head fight against John Key.
Eeeehm….
Credit: Niick
Poll: Parliamentary term and fixed election date
The Prime Minister John Key has repeated his wish for a 4 year parliamentary term, with pre-set election day. Have your vote on this issue now, and tell us why in the comments.
via: SMH
Buying Bullshit
I copped a lot of flak over the course of the US Elections for running a contrarian narrative regarding the race…bottom line though is I was looking at facts and figures dispassionately and not through a lens coloured by partisanship.
Sure it is easier to do when it is another country, so some clarity can cut through the crap. I have learned a valuable lesson that I will now try to implement when looking at New Zealand politics.
Cut through the crap and inform readers of facts not spin.
Forget a nickel; I’d a sixpence for every piece of conservative crapola spin I heard in the last two months. In retrospect, it’s very revealing about they try to game the system to get places like Politico and other mainstream outfits to assume they’re correct and accept their assumptions.
There was no way on Earth, for example, that young people were going to turn out this time. They were a higher percentage this time than last. Higher! Gallup, for one, bought into this in a huge way.
There was also no way Obama voters were as enthusiastic as Romney voters. Just no way. The enthusiasm gap. Everyone bought it. Again, the opposite was true.
Americans were going to be outraged by Benghazi. Chicago made up jobs numbers. Florida was a done deal. Romney had momentum until Sandy. And on and on.
Conservatives say these things with such conviction. I think they believe them to be true. And there’s a reason for that. Not so long ago, when conservatives said these things en bloc, they would come true. They’d happen. Back in Clinton’s day, say. Or Bush’s, before the debacles really hit home.
But then at some point, the majority of Americans stopped buying conservative bullshit. It must have been after Iraq. And Katrina. But now, conservatives can’t make surrealities come true just by saying so.
Tagged: elections
US Elections Open Debate Thread
Will Leighton Smith be paying for Lunch on Friday or will I?
Use this post to discuss the US election today.
Nate Silver’s prediction, but bear in mind this is the chance of winning not the result. There is still a chance Mitt Romney can pull a Reagan, but Nate Silver thinks that chance is only 9.1%
RealClearPolitics have a live and interactive election results site.
RCPs Electoral College Map
Obama’s piss poor debate has moved 68 votes from leans Obama to toss up.
Closer scrutiny shows that the states that have moved still favour Obama. The numbers are the RCP averages.
Michigan – Obama +3
New Hampshire – Obama +4.5
Ohio – Obama +1.3
Pennsylvania – Obama +4.5
Wisconsin – Obama +2.3
Obama underprepared for the first debate and got rinsed. It serves him right. He’ll probably man up at the next one which could make it a lot more interesting as there is nothing quite like a big brawl in a debate.
Tagged: Barack Obama • elections
