John Armstrong: Making the best of a bad job

So much for the Great American Bagman Scandal. On the evidence so far, you might well ask, "So what?"

Winston Peters has disclosed two emails which he says contradict National leader Don Brash's categorical assurances that his party was not covertly recruiting American funders and strategists to help it fight last year's election campaign.

The emails fall so far short of proving Peters' claim that it's his credibility that should be the one in question, not that of Don Brash. Ditto Trevor Mallard. The Labour minister seized on the first email dropped by Peters as vindication for his kicking the whole thing off last July when he asserted National's campaign was being financed and run out of the United States.

The email says nothing of the sort. It merely reveals that at a lunch in New York more than a year before the election, Brash received an offer to help National's campaign from two Americans.

One of them - clearly touting for business - subsequently sent a more detailed outline of what the pair could offer by way of campaign skills. Brash told his advisers the offer might be worth a closer look. But the party never followed it up.

All very interesting, but hardly an indictable offence.

Yet, in responding to Peters, things turned to custard for Brash. An inept performance at a press conference was capped off with Brash allowing himself to be caught on camera "walking the plank" during a routine photo-opportunity on Wellington Harbour the next day.

His mishandling of something he should have brushed aside with ease sent a shudder through National. And for one reason - their leader seemed to have taken no heed of his mistakes during last year's campaign. He had mucked up again. And, no doubt, would do so again.

The bungling has put his leadership style, although not his leadership, under scrutiny again.

There is no perceptible talk of coups - the necessary conditions are absent. While National has not overtaken Labour, it is still polling well.

There is no David Lange-like leadership aspirant with all the right attributes waiting in the wings. A big question mark hangs over John Key's experience. Key has nowhere near the votes required to mount a challenge. He would run into formidable resistance from Gerry Brownlee and Bill English.

These circumstances seem to have produced a strange kind of unwritten pact which has these leadership aspirants accepting that as they are stuck with Brash for now they may as well make the best of it and work collectively on getting National elected.

That pact would be likely to dissolve if National were to suffer a major slump in the polls or fail to make inroads into Labour's support by year's end.

As the prospect of a fourth term in Opposition looms into view, there will be a tipping point when the front-bench stalemate ends and the protagonists have to strike a deal on who should lead the party.

For now, however, the emphasis is on strengthening Brash. Senior National MPs held something of a crisis meeting following the press conference debacle. Some of the blame has fallen on Brash's staff for not anticipating what might go wrong.

The upshot is that Brash's chief of staff, Wayne Eagleson, will delegate some of his administrative duties to another staffer and concentrate far more on day-to-day political management.

It is an admission that Brash needs a "minder" and highlights the glaring lack of a chief press secretary in the office of the Leader of the Opposition who ensures Brash is not tripped up by the unexpected.

However, tightening up political management and boosting the support structure around the leader can only do so much.

Peters may not have substantiated Mallard's extravagant claims. However, dropping the leaked emails achieved its purpose in unsettling National just as the Opposition party was launching a pre-emptive strike on next week's Budget.

Brash should have kept it simple at his press conference. By that stage, the prevailing opinion was that Peters' claims did not stack up. All Brash had to do was say the offer of help from the two Americans had not been followed up and that no Americans had been involved in developing policy or campaign strategy back in New Zealand. End of story.

But Brash can be too honest at times. He generated widespread confusion during his press conference by suddenly mentioning a different pair of Americans who worked for National in New Zealand in a low-level role.

He did not think they were the ones at the lunch. But he was not sure who had been at the lunch.

As the press conference progressed, it became obvious Brash had not boned up on the detail of the email leaked by Peters. Brash did not have it on hand. He had to refresh his memory by borrowing a reporter's copy.

The whole sorry affair highlighted Brash's tendency to wing it when facing the media, rather than dropping everything and briefing himself properly beforehand. That can be fixed.

More serious was his failure to turn the tables on Peters and - to put it bluntly - ram the emails back down the NZ First leader's throat.

That Brash did not - and cannot - is not necessarily his fault. It is not his style. He never had the parliamentary apprenticeship to learn.

But it leaves National at a huge disadvantage. It means Brash is more frequently the victim who does not strike back. It makes him easy meat for his Labour counterpart - Prime Minister Helen Clark has never let the distractions of high office stop her constantly resharpening the bloodied blades on her chariot wheels.

National seems unsure what to do. It could leave the "attack politics" to Brownlee and English, with Brash staying above the fray and relaying positive messages or sticking to issues where he feels comfortable. The downside of that approach is that the leader - the face of the party - slips off the public's radar.

National then feels obliged to let the leader run with the big issue of the day - only to get little return.

The equivocation was apparent in National's handling of the Telecom leak. With Brash nowhere to be seen, English fronted. Then Brash took over. After Peters dropped his first email on Brash, suddenly it was Brownlee asking the questions.

Brash is not a conventional politician. Allowances have to be made for that. But in propping him up, National is trying to defy the forces of political gravity. This week was a painful reminder that it can only do so for so long.