The secret to John Key’s success
Most of us can see good things when there are good things to see . . . and most of us want some more
I’m glad National won. They won because they deserved to. Forget all the politics and heat and bollocks. Take out all the vitriol and fury. Take out all the side shows and dirt.
National had the best case. The best project to present. The best story to tell. The best numbers to back them.
None of this was ever complex. I say that because I predicted this outcome.
That doesn’t make me particularly clever, or indeed alone. A lot of people predicted this outcome, it’s just those that didn’t couldn’t see it. And so many that couldn’t see it didn’t want to.
When it comes to picking outcomes in politics you’ve got to let the logic drive the prediction, not the heart.
National’s win was written in the polls the entire way through the campaign. And it was written in the economic figures for the past three years.
To pick the win you needed to accept a couple of things.
One, the polls always tighten for the leading party as the campaign goes on. And two, the matters that transfixed the media and those who don’t like the Government — Nicky Hager, Glenn Greenwald and his fellow travellers — were never going to change the fundamentals.
So as National’s numbers came back from the low 50s to the high 40s, what we were told was that Dirty Politics was eating the vote, eroding the trust.
No it wasn’t. The numbers were merely doing what they always do.
The other tell-tale number was Labour’s.
It never moved . . . not one bit. They were consistent in their ability to go exactly nowhere. And the lead party on the other side stuck in the mid-20s was a massive clue as to why they were never going to form the next Government.
It’s a funny thing about election campaigns — although we know it’s the fundamentals people vote on, many never remember that.
What counts is how you feel, what you make of your country, how secure your job is, how proud you are
National supporters at the Viaduct Events Centre in Auckland celebrate as the results come in on Saturday night.
This country, when I was a kid, was a country in which many didn’t have a clue economically. Muldoon was right — we wouldn’t have known a deficit if it had bitten us in the bum. We lived in a shelter, in a jacked-up fantasy of falsehood.
Once the Labour Government of 84 fixed all that, our economic literacy improved exponentially.
Which means in simple terms, we know what’s what. And what’s what in this place is doing brilliantly. Perfectly? No. Brilliantly, yes. Any Government that presents the fundamentals in the sort of shape they are, cannot fail to do well. They deserve to do well.
Governments, after all, are really just there to run the place for us.
Within the margins we can debate the levels of social assistance and tax rates and school funding. But in big picture terms, if things look good, the blokes in charge get another go.
And the blokes who want to be in charge rarely, if ever, are able to gain ground by telling us things aren’t going well when they are.
Which was Labour’s real trouble . . . for a party with a ‘think positive’ slogan they were full of misery.
David Cunliffe ran a good campaign, but the whole party is broken so it’s not his fault entirely.
Until Labour can realise that they’re not right and we’re not wrong, they’re going nowhere.
The Greens I feel dreadful for, they ran a good campaign. Russel Norman didn’t talk about printing money once. They seemed organised and onmessage and the polling had them higher than ever. They must be gutted. Good on Winston: I’d never vote for him but I’d miss him if no one else did.
But if there was one bit I let my personal view get the better of me on, it was the demise of Internet-Mana.
Not for Hone, I like Hone. He simply made an appalling strategic error by getting involved with the madness in Coatesville. If I never see that sort of approach and attitude and arrogance again that Dotcom brought to all this, it won’t be too soon. But who wants to dwell on losers. National not only got a third term, they increased their vote. The fact that had never been done tells you all you need to know about how impressive that is.
If John Key holds it together well, he is heading for a fourth, and the history books as one of our greatestever leaders.
John Key gets it. Most of us are aspirational, most of us see good things when there are good things to see. And most of us want more of where that came from.
Cook that recipe up right, and you’re a winner.