Can Michael Wood and Julie Anne Genter end ACT?

17
9

6a00d83451d75d69e2015436cab7d1970c
One of the lynch pin electorates for this election is Epsom. If ACT win, they provide National with a coalition partner and a policy avenue of hard right selfishness that will damage the poor even worse than they’ve been damaged now.

ACT also have the potential to pull in a second MP off their list, in an election this close that could be the difference between winning and losing.

So how can progressive voters inside Epsom deliver a blow to National? They hold their nose and use their electorate vote to vote for the National Party candidate, Paul Goldsmith…

10259428_10152168508959285_983027137_n

…in the last election MANA, Green Party and Labour Party voters wasted 5977 electorate votes on their respective candidates, where as John Banks only just beat Paul Goldsmith by 2261 votes. If MANA, Green Party and Labour Party voters had put their wasted votes behind the National Party candidate, they would have killed off ACT once and for all.

That is the strategy The Daily Blog is calling on all MANA, Green Party and Labour Party voters in Epsom to adopt this election. ‘Holding your nose and voting’ has a long history in France where political extremism sometime rears its ugly head. Here a liberal voter is symbolically sprayed for disinfectant after voting for the conservative candidate to stop the racist candidate from winning…

_1969487_disinfectant_ap300

…I’m suggesting the exact same strategy for Epsom. MANA, Green Party and Labour Party voters need to hold their nose and vote for the National Party candidate to end ACT and kill off one of National’s possible coalition partners.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

Labour’s candidate in Epsom, Michael Wood, is an excellent candidate who did far better in the Botany by-election than was predicted. He savaged Jami-Lee Ross’s majority and is someone Labour desperately need inside Parliament. He should be given a high Party list ranking if he helps end ACT in Epsom.

The Green’s candidate in Epsom, Julie Anne Genter, is one of the Greens best candidates, gifted with brilliance and intelligence, she must be a certainty for Transport Minister in a new Government.

If both of them sign up to a tactic of contesting the Party vote while directing the electorate vote where it will do the most damage to the Government, ironically by voting for the Government’s candidate, they will be the toast of progressive voters throughout the country.

Purists will be aghast at what I am suggesting here, to them I roll my eyes with contempt. Epsom is the most gerrymandered electorate in NZ, if the right sleep tight at night knowing they are forever winning by manipulating the existing rules we need to grow up and adopt our tactics as well.

Voters can waste their electorate vote on a MANA, Labour or Green candidate who will never win Epsom or they can use their electorate vote strategically and amputate a possible coalition candidate and impact the total majority of Parliament to the point of changing the Government.

It boils down to this – do we want to stop John Key or not?

17 COMMENTS

  1. Absolutely correct in your assessment, Martyn.

    The same analysis applies in Ohariu. If Green voters had given their electorate vote to Charles Chauvel, then would have meant the end of Peter Dunne’s political career and the asset sale programme, increasing GCSB powers, attack on workers’ rights, would have been prevented.

    The Right are very clever when it comes to strategic voting.

    The Left have to match that cleverness, or be left behind.

  2. of course they should campaign for the party vote and not the electorate vote, but I’m wary that if they become too blatant about saying ‘cast your electorate vote for Goldsmith’, it will just make it more obvious to National supporters in Epsom that they should vote for the ACT candidate. and if all the Labour and Green supporters in Epsom give their candidate vote to the National candidate, and all the National supporters give their candidate vote to the ACT candidate, the ACT candidate will still win.

    • Most Epsom voters have no idea who the ACT candidate is, and even when Key had a cup of tea with Banks, still a huge chunk voted National

      • David Seymour is doing a lot of work in the electorate to ensure people are aware of who he is.

        Seymour is a strong candidate and would be an asset to a New Zealand parliament.

        The problem with your strategy is that any concerted focus on left voters in Epsom can be met with an increased focus from those on the right to get the message out to vote strategically.

        A cup of tea was all it took last time, imagine how many National voters would vote for Seymour with a concerted campaign.

    • That’s a really good idea.

      If they are serious about getting rid of National and killing off Act then yes, this is what they should do.

      It would probably work.

      But I don’t think they’ll do it.

      • Can’t agree more. There will always be people who will vote for a Labour/Green/etc. candidate if they are on the ballot, regardless of how much people tell them they should vote.

        In general, the more candidates there are standing against one unpopular candidate, the higher the risk of the opposition being split and letting the unpopular candidate back in. In practice, this means that if Paul Goldsmith is standing in Epsom, then Labour and the Greens should not stand candidates.

        Julie Anne Genter and Michael Wood should focus their energies on policy development and campaigning for the party vote only.

      • I strongly support the view expressed by Papa Tuanuku, and Lara, and GM above that the Labour, Green, and Mana candidates stand down.

        In Epsom the choice is not between National and Labour, it is between National and ACT. For Left voters in Epsom it is not a matter of holding your nose at all. You vote for the candidate belonging to the most Left party likely to get in. In this case it is National.

        The other point I would like to make, is this is not an undemocratic manipulation of the system, it is un-manipulating an undemocratic manipulation.

        Why do I say this?

        Because the figures show that the majority of voters in Epsom, (even despite pressure on National voters to change their vote) did not want ACT.

        If the Labour, Green and Mana Candidate stood down, this would be a restoration of democracy, the electors of Epsom would have their majority democratic choice, (so long denied them), returned. And the obviously unpopular Machiavellian manipulations of their party leaders would be undone.

        All round a victory for democracy.

        We on the Left might not like their preferred choice of National, but this is the most wealthiest and most conservative seat in the country, we should respect their democratic right. They are New Zealanders just like we are. We would object if the electors of Mangere or Otara had their democratic choice taken from them.

        We should celebrate the fact that this most privileged enclave of Kiwis reject the extreme Right politics of ACT.

  3. A lot of Green voters in Epsom are already committed to that strategy, Bomber. One is seated about 3 metres from me as I type this and is spreading that message.

  4. > Julie Anne Genter, is one of the Greens best candidates, gifted with brilliance and intelligence, she must be a certainty for Transport Minister in a new Government.

    Off topic I know, but if Julie-Anne Genter is not Transport Minister in a new Government, I would be bitterly disappointed. She will be by far the best Transport Minister NZ has ever seen, and likely to be the politician with the greatest positive impact on transport in NZ, with the possible exception of Sir Julius Vogel.

    If she is not Transport Minister, it would simply show that Labour is not serious about making a positive difference.

  5. If the scenario pictured in the header ever occurred at my place I’d be sorely tempted to explosively thrust two stiff fingers through that letter box slot. Only tempted mind you.

  6. Unfortunately those may be safety glasses he’s wearing, Richard.

    To take a poke at a more eye opening topic, this voting ploy seems so obvious that I remember querying why it wasn’t used at the last election. We didn’t have TDB back then so I was confined to the NZ Herald’s on-line comments. Hopefully there’s enough TDB readers out there to give this idea some traction.

  7. plus offering extras which can announce this kind of the main benefit of the skepticism. gedgdeebdgag

Comments are closed.