Andrew Little needs to get a grip.
John Key's resignation does not mean Labour is going to win the 2017 election.
Labour is not an alternative Government yet.
As tired as we are of listening to and looking at Nick Smith, Gerry Brownlee and Steven Joyce, they're still a preferable option to the ideas vacuum on the other side.
Even a year out, Labour has a helluva long way to go to beat National.
The latest Roy Morgan poll puts the Nats at 49.5 per cent. Labour and the Greens combined are only at 37.5 per cent.
If you don't think that's too big a gap, compare it to previous elections.
A year out from the 2014 vote, there was no gap.
Roy Morgan had Labour/Greens and National neck and neck at 45 per cent apiece. National still won.
A year out from the 2011 election, the same polling company had National at 48.5 per cent, with Labour and the Greens not too far behind at 42 per cent. National still won.
Sure, the gap will narrow now JK's gone.
There are voters who will lose interest in National.
But, Labour won't get those votes.
Those are personality voters looking for someone to charm them.
Chances are, they're heading straight for Winston Peters.
Still, Little reckons he's on a roll.
It's not just Key resigning. It's also the Mt Roskill byelection and Wellington mayoralty race wins for Labour.
Except, the Mt Roskill win isn't as great as it seems.
No one can find any evidence of an opposition party losing a seat to an incumbent Government in a byelection.
National's Parmjeet Parmar might have been the worst campaigner we've seen in a long time.
Labour's Michael Wood was a very good campaigner given all the experience he had running in Epsom and Botany in previous elections.
The Wellington mayoralty victory was a good win sure, but hands up who knew Justin Lester was a Labour candidate.
He didn't even use Labour-red on his billboards. He used yellow.
Meanwhile, Labour's losing its current and future MPs.
Phil Goff. David Cunfliffe. David Shearer. They're all gone or going.
There was a time former Porirua mayor Nick Leggett would have been top of the list to replace one of them.
But, he's quit his Labour membership and become a National Party candidate instead.
He flipped the bird on the way out by telling the country Labour fails to "understand the ambitions and challenges of working New Zealanders".
He's right.
This week, Little went on the radio to crow about his party's chances, but ended up sounding angry and out of touch.
He wanted to argue about the centre ground in politics.
He wanted to debate whether former Prime Minister Helen Clark was right that Labour needed to win the political centre.
Anyway, he said, "I don't know what the centre is".
FYI Andrew, the centre is the voters you need to make your dream come true.
They're the voters who aren't hardcore Labour supporters.
They're the people who change their minds from election to election, based on what you guys offer and the plans you have.
They're the baby boomers who own homes and the millennials trying to buy their first homes.
They're the workers stuck in traffic daily and the parents wondering how much they can afford to spend on holidays for their kids this summer.
They want you to help the country, by helping them first.
If you haven't figured that out, then Key isn't Labour's biggest problem. You are.
