With a
final majority of 710 in the 2014 election, the third-smallest
overall, Labour renegade minister Peter Dunne is under threat. Danyl
McLaughlin reports: "Former Police Association president
Greg O’Connor is rumoured to be interested in becoming Labour’s
Ohariu candidate. Nominations close on February 3."
(https://dimpost.wordpress.com/2017/01/09/ohariu/#comment-162859)
You
can see the leftist rationale for selecting O'Connor to take out
Dunne: to defeat a center-right dork, use another. Leftists
have learnt that presenting leftist candidates doesn't work when most
voters don't want them. Using the theory of identity politics,
Ohariu voters, most being center-right dorks, will identify with
O'Connor as much as with Dunne, splitting his vote down the middle.
Some
will vote National, of course, producing a three-way split of similar
proportions. The rationale cleverly factors in O'Connor's
advocacy track record on the basis of its similarity to that of a
union leader. The dwindling bunch of Labour tribal loyalists
will get in behind, so he will pull ahead of the other two. This
scenario assumes the Labour/Green MoU is activated to ensure the
Greens don't stand a candidate.
What
if a majority of the leftists in the candidate selection process want
a candidate that is authentic? What if they don't get
over-ruled by the Labour hierarchy? How about a barn-storming
fire-brand wanting to return Labour to its roots, to replicate what
drove it up in popular support a century ago? They'd get Bomber
Bradbury to stand against O'Connor - spooking the moderates, who'd
then get Laila Harre to provide a feminist option as well.
What
if the Greens insisted on a combined selection process, to prove that
the MoU has enough substance to model how it would work in
government? They could offer Celia Wade-Brown the opportunity
of becoming one of the first cabinet ministers in a Labour/Green
government (if she rejoins the Green Party sometime soon).
Imagine
these four candidates performing their speeches to a Labour/Green
selection meeting. O'Connor would present the case for Labour
being a solid centrist government in his usual pedestrian style,
Bradbury would rouse the old leftist spirit in the audience with
team-building rhetoric by demonising the opposition, Harre would be
the sweet voice of reason preaching at the converted, and Wade-Brown
would tell them that the best way to change the government is to
select candidates with a track record of winning and hers is the best
out of all four.
Trump
showed us lateral-thinking can produce political victory by
confounding both wings of the establishment. To get a suitable
change of government in Aotearoa, we need Labour & the Greens to
learn that lesson. Then use it!
