This election campaign has a certain depoliticised and contrived aspect to it. Certainly the gap between politicians and the public has never been larger, with little meaningful engagement by politicians with the public, low enrolment for the election, and the likelihood of a low voter turnout on Saturday. This is the focus of my opinion piece in the Herald today: Designer politics a real turn-off for the nation's voters. I explain why fewer people are voting in general elections and why we shouldn't condemn those that choose not to participate. This is contentious, and there are always plenty of voices demanding that we all perform our 'democratic duty' at election time - see, for example Jane Bowron's Get off your backsides and vote - please. Such directives - while well intentioned - won't resonate with those who feel patronised by being told you 'must vote' regardless of how repulsed you are by what passes for the options on offer and the electoral circus that is the contemporary campaign.
Brian Edwards writes an excellent blog post on the inauthenticity of modern party policies - and how instead of coming up with genuinely held beliefs and trying to convince us of these, modern political parties 'follow' the public through the use of market research so as to give the public want they want - see: Leadership, Followship and the Tyranny of the Focus Group.
There are quite a few items today about the inanities of election advertising - especially billboards. For example, in Confusion reigns amid sign blitz, Joshua Drummond has written an amusing parody of the 'sign-gularity' notion that we all simply vote for the party with the best and most billboards. Similarly, a Nelson Mail editorial (Ugly billboards are obvious targets) asks if 'a single voter has been empty-headed enough to cast his or her votes based simply - or even partly - on the message contained on a political billboard?' Other interesting items about billboards include Michelle Cooke's Kaye lets public loose with her slogans and Blog Idle's Billboards, trees and comparative loveliness. And Peter Lange's pro-Paul Goldsmith campaign poster for Epsom - which is aimed at sinking the Act Party - can be downloaded from here: Epsom campaign poster, by Peter Lange.
A lot of questions are being asked at the moment about the legitimacy and ethics of some more extreme forms of negative campaigning. Derek Cheng reports today on the Labour Party's justification for sending out advertising that seeks to shock people out of voting for National - see: 'Hard hitting' leaflet tells truth, says Goff. Whaleoil broke the original story with his blog post, Labour is the nasty party, ctd. Since then, Matthew Hooton has blogged a scathing attack on Labour's Grant Robertson for losing his 'moral compass': Labour plumbs new depths. David Farrar covers similar themes in Flirting with the truth. Russell Brown also covers the issue of social media campaigning on election day - see: The Solemnity of the Day. But it might be meteorological conditions that are a much greater factor in the election outcome - see Philip Duncan's Talk about the weather, and politics.
Unsurprisingly, the Greens are receiving a lot of attention this week - partly because of their very high opinion poll ratings (which will probably rise further), and because the party is now set to potentially play a central role in determining post-election governmental arrangements. Some heat is being applied to the party in an attempt to clarify its new coalition policy - see RNZ's Greens not ruling out confidence and supply deal with National and TV3's Greens coalition with National "hypothetical question" - Norman. Other interesting items about the Greens include: TV3's Green Party ready to flex muscles after election, Adam Bennett's Greens promise help for small businesses, TV3's A harder edge to the Greens?, Paul Little's Greens thrive as we face dirty truth, No Right Turn's The Greens, abstention and cooperation, and the Herald's editorial Wild Greens nowhere to be seen.
