How to lose an election in four steps
The campaign is nearly over, but there’s still plenty of time to make mistakes.
One week to go Bill and Jacinda – don’t screw up. You’ve each got the other one breathing down your neck and the pressure must surely be a burden to carry.
On the shoulders of the newly minted Labour leader Jacinda Ardern are the hopes of a left-wing bloc that has barely had a reason to participate for the past nine years. They think they’ve got this.
And under the weight of a baton passed to him from National’s grinning messiah, leader Bill English carries the baggage of the past, the risk of undoing his social investment programme, and the expectations of a caucus that expected to walk back into Government all but two months ago.
It’s the final slog, the last drag – and it can’t come soon enough. In a hard-fought campaign there’s still potential for the leaders to misstep – here’s what not to do in the dying week.
‘Photographer, make sure you get me from my best angle’
This means if you’re throwing a ball around, don’t drop it. Lest the cameras catch you in the act and have an eternal shot to match with headlines insinuating a metaphorical dropping of the ball.
Similarly, best not pose for photographs prone in long grass, walk any planks or eat any hotdogs in public – lest an iconic moment is created for all the wrong reasons. Bank the votes you have The public polls are all over the place and all that suggests is a great many people still haven’t made up their minds. Both parties’ internal polling put National and Labour neck-and-neck.
It seems to be the internal polls that the parties are taking their cues from, and so this is the time to appeal to the voters a party doesn’t have. The cores of both sides have solidified so the final week is not the time to be pandering to the base – that should have already been done by now.
Play the ace, but don’t play the fool
And if those base votes are banked in a trust as they should be, now is the time for the big play; the interest-free student loan-type rabbit. Something that’s either so big it dwarfs the cynicism-hued wrapping paper, or something so transformational New Zealanders didn’t know they needed it.
But now you’ve floated it ... well, yeah – I can’t imagine my life without this amazing thing.
Either way, 10 new bridges is probably not going to do it.
Beware the sting – or the hidden recorder
Or a better piece of advice: for one week at least, refrain from talking in any situation about how much you’d like to introduce a capital gains tax – you just have to get past this annoying thing called democracy first.
Similarly, best not to promise New Zealand’s nuclear-free policy would be gone by lunch time – no matter how hushed the tone.
So yes, we’re in the homestretch. It’s the sprint at the end of the marathon and the time to call on the final reserves, rest assured that in the next week, there’s plenty to go wrong yet.
And one more word of advice; for heaven’s sake, don’t start talking about your candidates’ left testicles.