Editorial: National hanging in despite itself

Opinion

Say what you like about the National Party's election campaign, you cannot accuse it of being orthodox. Where most political movements in most campaigns here and abroad would have been completely undone by the litany of mistakes and tactical errors National has made in the past month, Don Brash's party forges on.

It has taken more hits and inflicted more upon itself than the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Yet, like the Black Knight, who progressively loses limbs and body parts in battle but refuses to concede defeat, it will not lie down.

National's problems range from its opponents having obtained the contents of Dr Brash's email inbox to false starts on policy announcements, to its leader mistakenly committing to substantial primary health subsidies, to this week's Exclusive Brethren saga.

In each case, the orthodox Campaign Manager's Textbook would predict substantial collateral damage to a party's chances at the ballot box. Dr Brash's obfuscation and use of plausible deniability over what and when he knew about the Brethren's pamphlets attacking the Greens and Labour could, in the classic campaign text, be considered terminal.

In the past 36 hours, he has had to assure the electorate he is not a liar and apologise to the public and his own deputy. For the first time, the public sees a stressed, startled politician rather than the measured, almost goofy anti-politician of popular myth. In the political classes, and Labour's war-room, they are preparing the last rites.

National, though, has defied the conventional wisdom thus far and it is by no means certain that it won't do so again. Three big factors keep it in the contest, despite its achingly poor political management: tax cuts, race issues and a subterranean public unease about Labour and Helen Clark, which the Government cannot master.

National ends the penultimate week of the campaign basically even with Labour in the latest Herald Digipoll survey. Further results are due tomorrow, and the Brethren shenanigans might well have knocked National again.

Yet there is a strong chance that outside the intense campaign scene inhabited by politicians, press and academics, the voters have been less moved by Dr Brash's mistakes.

There are examples overseas of parties gaining in the polls from times of adversity as the public turns on critics from the media and the "elites", whom they suspect of trying to tell them how to react. John Howard benefited from this backwash in the 2001 Australian election after his Tampa refugee comments.

Dr Brash now has questions over his credibility and political management. How far, though, will they penetrate an electorate already counting the $35 or $50 a week cash-in-the-hand they expect if he wins next Saturday?

There is a view, expressed in letters to the editor yesterday, that any question over his telling the truth simply puts him into the same league as Helen Clark and all politicians. It is a back-handed compliment, but it is there.

No sensible observer believes National would be manipulated by the Brethren on policy. The very unusualness of the church makes that too long a stretch in the public mind.

National has a good chance of losing the election next Saturday. Its campaign team is giving that its best shot. Will the voters, though, allow them to get in the way of its tax cuts, one law for all and opportunity to change the government?