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Don’t we just love to speculate about politics. To analyse the polls and guess at what we think might happen. The scenarios can be many and varied and of course some of our views are deeply influenced by our own wishful thinking.
For example, there’s nothing I’d like more than to see the current bunch of inept losers tossed out on their ears in September, and I could make many very positive and convincing cases for how that could happen. Similarly, albeit with a whole lot less enthusiasm, I could make a very strong and persuasive case for the status quo remaining.
The polls give us something to work with but they’ve been so wrong so often lately, that it’s impossible to come up with anything useful relying on them alone. So we fall back on experience, general knowledge, history, psychology, personal opinion, some poll results and of course to some degree, what neighbours chat about over the fence or conversations overheard in pubs.
The completely unscientific consensus I’m getting from many quarters is firstly, that despite what this week’s polls say, the Greens and NZ First will get past the 5% mark.
Secondly, despite the complete lack of delivery and the highly embarrassing failures so far, Labour have increased their popularity since the last election and will probably end up with a higher vote and more seats. Meanwhile, Ms Ardern continues to walk on water.
Thirdly, National in its current form is not as popular as it was at the last election and even committed past National supporters can’t see their way clear to voting for them. They won’t see their way clear to voting for anybody else, so those people probably won’t vote at all unless National can do something convincing for them.
Fourthly, there is a large group of “junior” citizens who have the right to vote for the first time this year and they are heavily influenced by genuine green, conservation issues as well as the climate change hoax. They don’t see Green Party socialism and social engineering as an issue and probably don’t understand it. They like getting things for free and as most of them haven’t had to face the reality of earning a living and working between one and two days a week to pay tax alone, they’re happy to roll with what they perceive as being good for the planet. If they can be mobilised to put down their phones and go to a polling station on the day, that could be a very real game-changer.
At the end of the day, what happens on election day is of course what counts and though the people will determine who ends up at the finish line, those who make it to the finish line will get to then negotiate the real winners and losers of the overall event and those negotiations will determine who will actually govern.
That’s why a wise politician might choose to keep all options open until the last possible moment pending those negotiations.
Ms Ardern will be quietly smiling to herself.
Painful thought isn’t it.
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