Election Campaign 2020 – Political Winners & Losers 

When was the last ‘normal’ election?

I feel like we’ve lived this myth that our elections are predictable and boring, but 2017 was unbelievable, 2014 was another universe of crazy and 2011 wasn’t too shabby either, but 2020 has managed to eclipse all of those others with a campaign that was at times divine and at others a fucking toxic dumpster fire.

There were heroes, there were super villains, there was bewildering incompetence, jaw dropping spite and a National Party MPs sext pics.

It was the best of times, it was truly the worst of times.

Let’s compound this elections political grudges with many funny and hurtful words.

 

BEST POLITICAL ASSASSINATION: Iain Lees-Galloway

It was the fluidity of it that was so terrifying wasn’t it? The effortless muscle memory that Judith displayed in blowing Iain Lees-Galloway’s brains all over the studio of The AM Show when she outed his affair to remove attention from her handling of Falloon.

It was the casual malice of it all that was so jarring and it etched into our consciousness that Judith had all the compassion of a hungry wolverine in a premature birthing ward.

 

BEST SELF MUTILATION: Matthew Hooton

What the fuck was he doing?

He went sober and adopted this pious warrior philosopher poet schtick as his promise for personal development post all the Dirty Politics Machiavellian stuff, and he almost did it.

He had bewilderingly been allowed back into the media as a commentator no questions asked after Hager’s book and he went back to Uni for his philosophers stone and he dodged the defamation implosion at the NBR for the prized straddling of the NZ Herald + RNZ platforms.

His columns were infuriatingly incisive, destructive and declaring the end of Jacinda’s Government every month.

He had mana, he had fear and he had respect.

Then he pimped for Todd Muller in a coup fuelled on the false confidence of a tall man and the cowardice of backbench MPs and set National into a death spiral it can’t pull out of.

Was the bloodlust for one more power roid chance to grasp at the precious too much for sober Gollum?

Is that what happened?

Because fuck that entire Muller fiasco was unbelievably destabilising.

What does Hooton do for an encore after that? Amputate his own leg with a can opener?

I thought I was a masochist, but Hoots must be at another end of the scale. I’ll say something mean about Ben in the media awards blog.

 

WORST ELECTION ADVERT: Andrew Falloon’s dick pic.

 

MOST BEWILDERING POLICY: Judith’s war on the fatties.

Why would you insult a vast chunk of the electorate by staging a surprise attack on their self esteem 4 days out from the election? Someone has explained to her that the goal of an election is to get more people to vote for you right? She doesn’t think she becomes Prime Minister by insulting the most amount of people does she? Why doesn’t she go whole hog and demand all pet dogs be incinerated to help cause more air pollution? I mean at this stage, the National Party campaign is such a fucking train wreck that the percentage vote they finally gain won’t be a symbol of support, it will be the measurement of blind obedience to fuckwittery.

 

HOME GOAL AWARD: Paul Goldsmith

Telling people you are more competent than the Government when it comes to running the budget only works if you don’t incompetently dig an $8Billion hole in your own budget. He writes books about tax, can’t National find someone duller than this?

 

PRESIDENTIAL PARDON AWARD FOR PRESIDENTS: Michelle Boag

‘Chelle, ‘chelle, ‘chelle. What happened ‘Chelle? Exactly what part of wrongfully accessing information about Covid patients and passing it along to a National Party MP to use for political point scoring was wrong do you think? Exactly at what point in that process did you think, ‘gosh, that’s a bit fucking psychotic and a tad dishonest, I should probably take a breather from this addiction of power’, because it seems based on the timeline that it was only when you realised you could be compelled to speak to the investigator that you suddenly felt bad. The person this hurt most was Matt McCarten because the media kept using that bloody photo!

 

WHO THE FUCK IS THAT AWARD: Hamish Walker

There were so many nobody nobodies this year who managed to pierce the veil of their mediocrity and appear in the Nations consciousness and Hamish Walker was one such nobody. He joins a long line of National lads with terribly distorted perceptions of their importance from super safe South Island electorates who have managed to implode with a magnitude on par with a Trump twitterstorm.  Taking privileged information from Boag and pimping it to the media to prove some slightly racist point he had been trying to make about Covid patients being housed in his electorate is as gasp inducing as another Netflix fee rise.

 

GAME OF THRONES ANALOGY AWARD – Jacinda, Mother of Dragons

With Jacinda Ardern, we have reached peak Mother of Dragons with the mildest dragons ever. She is about to be handed the mandate of an epoch with the most timid nothing policies in the world. 10 days sick leave? Who at the CTU mixed the weakest nothings on earth with hollow wishes, divided it, watered it down and then came up with 10 sick days as a response to the pandemic? I mean, duh, yes 10 sick days, but that should have been the starting point, not the end. This term Jacinda defined ‘transformative’ as whatever Winston allowed her to do, this term let’s see how Jacinda defines ‘no one left to blame’.

 

Campaign of the year – John Tamihere

He’s had a blinder of a campaign. He’s clearly won every debate he’s been in, including the multi-party debates. When mainstream Pakeha media are praising a Māori politician, you know he’s either done well or just called on the Treaty to be pruned.  If he manages to bring in 1 MP for the Māori Party, he will have reset a political legacy and re-established his own.

 

VOTER ALIENATION AWARD: Helen White

What was it exactly that managed to make Helen White so awful as a candidate for Labour in Auckland Central? Was it the condescending attitude? The sense that she felt journalists and the dumb voters were beneath her? The Ok Karen snide put downs of Chloe? It was difficult to actually place wasn’t it? But it was totally there. She’s such a bad candidate. She  cut a 15.7% lead down to a mere 5% in the space of 6 weeks!  What a shambles.

 

YELLOW FEATHER OF POLITICAL COWARDICE AWARD & COMPLIMENTARY BACK-BRACE – ACT Party

The complimentary back-brace is for Chloe Swarbrick because ACT left her to do all the heavy lifting with the Cannabis referendum. For a supposed freedom Party, ACT have been quieter on cannabis reform than Trump has been on Feminism. Oh sure, you, your pet and your 9month infant can all have a Military style semi-automatic assault rifle because that’s freedom, but the fear of conservative Epsom voters dumping Seymour has dictated a political cowardice of bone spur proportions. I’m personally breaking into David Seymour’s Epsom electorate office and smoking a joint if the referendum passes. It’ll be a bag of burning dog shit on his doorstep if it doesn’t

 

MOST PETTY MOMENT- Simeon Browne

Only Simeon Brown could be so petty to put a security camera on one of his own billboards. Smashing down a Simeon Brown billboard is a right of passage for every son, daughter and intersex child of Auckland! It’s like Rainbow’s End, we’ve all been there once.

 

BEST BILLBOARD ART: New Conservatives

 

BEST CULT LEADER ELECTION 2020 – Billy TK and Jami-Lee Ross

It’s last days in the bunker time for Billy TK and JLR. Their conspiracy theory laden madness is upon them, the time of the 5G Apocalypse and rise of the Anti-Christ UN is here and it’s less Rapture as it is Rupture. The power of Facebook to project fear over reason and allow snake oil merchants like these two to manipulate people and warp the very structures of our Democracy really does need a jolly good looking into whenever Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi can find a minute to not be useless.

 

MOST EGREGIOUS VEGAN PORK BARREL: Greens Jedi Academy

Did the Greens actually think they were getting Jedi at this Private Harry Potter Environmental Academy?

I love that it has cocooned class rooms that look like the Ewok village from the Forest Moon of Endor.

For years the Greens have desperately attempted to shake the wacky holistic Gaia worship midnight garden dancing image to be seen as responsible, but this Wizarding Academy fiasco has managed to tie them to the Maypole.

It had a crystal garden, but what was most magical was that James Shaw didn’t seem to think funding a $20 000 a year private school for the elites was a big deal.

 

BARK FROM THE PAST AWARD: Winston Peters

Goodbye Winston. It’s been a privilege watching you casually race bait boomers for decades and it paying off every election. How else will the racing industry and fishing industry manage to manipulate regulation once NZ First have gone?

 

ROAD TO NOWHERE AWARD – Ponsonby Road meltdown

National’s Ponsonby Rd meltdown was evidence of an ineptitude that you can’t dismiss. The media saw National operatives lining up supporters to meet Judith while pretending they were ordinary Aucklanders rushing to greet the beloved leader. National are so incompetent  they couldn’t get laid wearing bananas in a monkey brothel.

 

BEST FAKE ORGASM AWARD – Judith in prayer

Best fake orgasm of the election has to go to Judith pretending to be Christian.

Here was God’s reply

“I’m not killing Winston, David Seymour, Jacinda or that child who looked at you funny while on the campaign tour, these aren’t prayers Judith, it’s a hit list!”

 

Tomorrow is the NZ Media Coverage of Election 2020 Awards – Winners & Losers.

 

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