Liam Hehir is fighting for a National Party voter who no longer exists
Brash and Mowbray’s call to split National’s vote is a fool’s errand – Liam Hehir
One of the best turns of phrase in the English language is “too clever by half”: a scheme so sure of itself, and so complicated, that it blows up in the face of the schemer.
That is exactly what comes to mind when contemplating the thinking of former National Party leader Don Brash, businessman Nick Mowbray and his father Harry and other assorted rightists telling National voters to split their vote this year. Keep the National electorate candidate, they say, and give your party vote to Act or New Zealand First. If enough of us do it, then the centre-right gets an overhang through the vagaries of MMP and the coalition has a better shot at staying in government.
The argument is superficially appealing (even ingenious) for people invested in preventing the left from winning, but who couldn’t care less about the interests of the National Party in particular. But it is so practically unsound that it’s just as likely to torpedo the right as it is to save it. It depends on tens of thousands of people hearing the same instruction, understanding it and executing it with almost no mistakes.
The key point to bear in mind is that New Zealanders do not, as a whole, have a good understanding of the electoral system. After 30 years, the electorate still does not understand the mechanics of MMP. That has shown up in survey after survey. The most recent one I can find, from the New Zealand Initiative in 2020, had only 46% knowing both ways a party gets into Parliament.
NZ Herald
Liam Hehir provides a very good analysis of these Hard Right Hate Trolls vote splitting strategy and makes any attempt to stand for the values of National.
He also makes a string defence for TPM using the strategy vs National voters using it…
But what about Te Pāti Māori? It has sometimes ended up with an overhang from the Māori seats (though not at every election). But the situations are not comparable. The party is a defined, separate part of the electorate with very low levels of turnout. And until this year, the party was not really trying to engineer overhangs. It just happened in 2005 in part because of genuinely divided loyalties.
That does not mean what TPM is trying to do this year is fine. The point is that you cannot just will the same result into existence on the general roll. The Māori seat overhang is not the result of a nationwide major party thinning its own party vote just enough to manufacture extra seats (without also dropping enough electorates to wreck the whole idea).
…he’s right about the risks to National electorates this election but where he is wrong is about who National voters are any more.
This election is happening in a social media hate algorithm environment where each see the other as an existential threat.
Labour is chasing a middle voter who no longer exists and Liam is chasing a rational National voter who no longer exists.
Many principled National voters have turned away in disgust at Luxon’s weakness with Seymour and Winston and they are voting TOP.
Many Māori who voted national have returned to Labour and the activists who are plotting this National overhang hate National and don’t care for Liam’s reasoned position.
This is an election about rallying the base and un fortunately for Liam, National’s base are the redneck monsters we on the Left always suspected they were.
The Mowbray Billionaire Class are desperate to keep pushing culture war resentment to gloss over the way they strangle the common good for their interests.
This has infected the body politic and has permanently warped voters.
The Right have their petty bigotries manipulated by the Big Polluters, the Property Pimps and the mega wealthy, and no where is that ore apparent than in the Taxpayers’s Union.
Liam is appealing to the good side of National voters that no longer exists.
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@ nick mowbray. How much tax do you pay nick? Come on? Lets have a look at your tax records? You’re a multi-billionaire so let’s have a look at your tax records? You’re quoted as saying things like ” this country is made up of so many whiners and losers with their hands out. ” Is it. Let’s see your tax records nick?
‘Rational National voters’.
That phrase is as hard to say as it is to find an example of.
That bird is now extinct.
If Hehir is rational, he needs to pick another party.
Former National ministers would be turning in their graves and those who haven’t made it that far, bar the bad penny Key, must finally be understanding that they don’t need to leave the party because the party has left them.
The calibre of candidates is the first problem. Hardened National voters are uncomfortable at the ease with which National made room for people who have confessed to assault and battery. Even longstanding people like McLay are having difficulty explaining their government’s stance on pollution and the EU’s concerns.
Poor decision making goes right back to candidate selection and Luxon has history, allegedly, with former employers.
You wonder how silly people have to be not to notice.
Then, to be silly enough to fall back on Act or Winston1st. That’s definitely not rational.
Having read your previous posts I doubt if you really know how National supporters think .How many functions have you been too organized for and by National members. No one policy suits all but the complete picture is that the goal is the same . Personally I dislike the anti Maori attitude of some and would like to return to the Key times when we worked with TPM for the benefit of all
What I can say is, I know they don’t think like me!
I’m sure if you try, you’ll be able to remember a few other attitudes you dislike.
There’s no point in thinking Key would be the answer.
He needed a black ops office next door to his own and the purpose of that was outlined by Nicky Hager if I remember.
When they have to play dirty, you ought to know they don’t really know what they are doing.
I dislike the way they can only feel good about themselves when they are denigrating someone else. We have had many examples of this from this govt.