Brash in his own words

A small video contribution to the debate, which someone flicked me.

Don Brash Montage

It's worth a look, in .wmv format. Feel free to share it around, if you're so inclined.

Comments

[Craig Ranapia]

*Someone*, Jordan? Party HQ? The Labour Research Unit? Who?

[Gooner]

Jordan on 22 July:

"Craig - I'm not keen on the type of politics Trevor has engaged in here, but I am just waiting to see what happens on it.

He's not playing it the way I would have done, put it that way,..."

Maybe you're not Jordan, but 6 posts on Brash in the last week or so! You are on the Labour Council and I would think you therefore know the 'strategy'. You are repeating it here.

[tim barclay]

Don Brash clearly has the Labour Party worried so they attack him saying he is dumb (please make my day) and is a wooly thinker. At least he does not speak in glib soundbites like Helen Clark. There is a transparent honesty about him. He knows what he is doing, nothing could be harder than being Reserve Bank Goveror so far as the media is concerned. Go after him please and criticise his lack of glib statements. So the 4 week campaign failed and it ends up n a whole lot of personal abuse because nothing else worked.

[RWDB]

It's about trust is it?

So would you recommend New Zealanders vote for a party led by an art fraudster, or not?

And let's not even mention lying to the media about Doonegate.

[Whaleoil]

I'm with Gooner, oh and Craig and Tim and RWDB....

Bereft of ideas, the Labour Party has resorted to the very thing they despise in others "Personality Politics".

Well you know what happens when you play the man and not the ball....the ref and some of the man's mates come along and kick you out of the game.

[Christiaan]

Got it in Quicktime?

[Christiaan]

An art fraudster, RWDB? Yes I think I'd be more concerned about having a prime minister that would have sent our troops into an illegal and immoral war and doesn't want to talk about it, especially one that's happy to be a poodle of the Americans. I'd be hard pressed to think of anyone less trustworthy than someone who would want to cosy up to the neocons.

[GeniusNZ]

I notice labour is playing up this iraq war thing, I think they are making a mistake. It isn't a bad strategy to mention it but it is not a great strategy to let it become the (or even "a") central focus of the campaign - the reason why is that while NZders care about this issue they (on the whole) dont vote on it.they vote on those economic ones. same sort of reason why people can oppose howard over iraq but vote for him anyway.

Also it is a strategy likely to fall into pitfalls such as labour supporters accusing national of things that are plain ridiculous - partly because some of your supporters (and alot of greens) honestly believe these ridiculous things. This only serves to highlight the wacky part of your party.

I also note the speeding fine thing and painter gate were good when they came up but are now beating a dead horse.

However if they want to win they are moving in the right direction towards the national style of marketing.

I really like the segways I saw in auckland today too - that was pretty cool... Makes you look.

I can just imagine national and labour segways going down either sides of the road. Maybe a Nz first segway zigzaging in the middle of the road....

[RWDB]

Christiaan,

Removing a guy like Saddam Hussein could only be called "immoral" by the sort of person who so admired him that they would go all the way to Baghdad to do free public relations work on his behalf.

Like you, for instance.

It could only be called illegal by somebody who thought that Saddam Hussein's right to sovereignty was more important than the freedom, prosperity and happiness of millions of innocent Iraqis.

Like you, for instance.

That stats show that Iraqis are much better off with Saddam gone. But if you had had your way, he'd still be in power. How do you sleep at night?

[Paul]

"Doonegate"

Sortry, there is a level of importance here and Iraq vs Doonegate is a no brainer.

If this guy was 'commander in chief' at the time of the ILLEGAL invasion, he would have sent Kiwis to war and most possibly their death.

That is a position of responsibility that I know that this guys is not capable of.

Kiwi's home in bodybags vs Doonegate, please debate real topics.

BTW Tim, as posted by Jordan (?) Brash and your band of hollier than thou merrie men, came out with the personal politcal attacks many months ago, stop this bullshit that Brash can't be touched.

[Paul]

RWDB

the same way we all slept when the US ans it's friends were supplying this guy with Nerve gas, after the Kurd attacks.

The same way you selpt when he was deeveloping his Nuclear programme, supported by the CIA.

But please be selective in the truth, it's a good look.

[RWDB]

Paul,

Trust is what is at issue here. Helen Clark is totally untrustworthy, as shown by gates Doone and Painter. On the other hand, you can disagree with Brash's stance on Iraq if you want, but he has been quite honest about it. It's just he'd rather talk about actual important current issues, rather than hypothetical situations dreamed up by Labour to pander to the anti-Americanism of the uninformed.

Speaking of uninformed, there is no truth to your wild CIA theories. Jacques Chirac gave Saddam Hussein a nuclear reactor, not the US.

And do stop all this "illegal war" talk. Most of us want a NZ to have a free and independent foreign policy, rather than be UN puppets.

[Chris]

Paul - the Kosovo bombings in 1999 were "illegal" too. Get over it, international law means nothing.

[Craig Ranapia]

Whaleoil:

I think you've slightly missed my point. If Jordan wants to post and link to virtual "attack ads", he's perfectly entitled to. I'd actually be more surprised if he didn't.

But I think he should also disclose exactly where they're come from - because I've heard they're being produced from within Young Labour with the full knowledge and tacit endorsement of the senior party.

Would you care to confirm or deny, Jordan?

[BerlinBear]

Am I the only one who was bothered by the fact that irrelevant was misspelt over and over and over again in that ad?

Or is that irrelevant? ;-)

[Craig Ranapia]

BB:

To be honest, I was too busy laughing to fisk the prose.

[BerlinBear]

Craig,
Must be a difference of focus. I was too busy being bothered by all the "irrelevent"s to laugh. Just about missed the message of the video entirely. Pesky linguistics training gets in the way of real life at times. I do hope whoever is responsible for this hasn't disseminated it too widely. How embarrassing.

[Sally]

I hope that Craig, RWBD, Mr Barclay et al can read this OK with their heads in the sand...

When a person who wants to be PM refuses to discuss his view on the most contraversial, important foreign policy topic of the previous term, that really is cause for alarm.

Prime Ministers simply have to do foreign policy - that's just how foreign policy works (good luck sending a Minister to an APEC Leader's retreat, etc.). And this potential PM has shown all Kiwis that he is entirely inept in this field. With due respect to Duncan Garner, if Dr Brash can get twisted up like this by TV3 imagine what senior APEC / WTO negotiators or politicians from other countries could dupe him into doing.

If nobody cares about this stuff, as Genius claimed, why was Brash so reticent? Because he knows that he has a deeply unpopular position and he knows that this worries people, that's why.

And with all the posters, ads, flyers, and now video drawing attention to the very view he wanted to bury, he looks silly as well as unpopular.

It is **Brash** who is playing dirty politics here (well, until TM went bananas), trying to cover up the fact that he doesn't want to defend his views on foreign policy with a shallow smoke and mirrors story.

[Simon]

Thanks for explaining the point of wmv Sally.

But heres the thing for Labor to win the need to move to the center and the people who are wrapped about this anti american thing are not where labor need to be. Got to happy about that. Very long way to go yet though.

[Craig Ranapia]

BB:

No, you're right. Many years back I narrowly avoided sending out a Young Nats PR that should not have been proofed at 3am in a state of acute sleep deprivation. In the internet age - when you can embarrass yourself with the click of a button, the risks increase exponentially.

Sally:

Let's talk when you, the point of my comments and observable reality are all in the same time zone.

[Whaleoil]

Man what is the point of all the fuss over Iraq.....that someone might have got killed...They're soldiers they get paid to fight with GUNS and BOMBS not fluffy pillows.

Ok it is a bugger to cop one and all but I bet if you had a poll of all the soldiers in combat units on whether or not to go and have a stoush they would all say yippee pick me.

[Paul]

Whaleoil.

"Ok it is a bugger to cop one and all"

Did you actually read what you wrote?

& Chris

"Get over it, international law means nothing." Brilliant, I'm off to bomb australia, they talk funny and piss me off by beating us in cricket all the time, but the law means nothing, so cool, I'll get away with it.

[Jordan]

Oh this is so tired and predictable.

Trust in politics is very simple: will someone follow their promises once elected?

Labour has a crystal clear record on that: we do.

National has a crystal clear record on it too: they don't.

Brash is key in this debate because his views are radical and extreme, far to the right of most National people and far to the right of the policy framework he is laying out now.

Frankly, I do not trust him to follow what he is promising. I think he'll swing off to the right just like National did last time it came to power.

That is why I'm posting lots about Brash. It's not going to go away. He can't un-say what he's said over many years in public life, just to try and win an election.

One has to assume that his long record of firmly held views is a reliable indicator of what he really wants to do - and with National's record of abandoning its promises, why would he not do the same?

[Trent]

Thanks for that Jordan. I feel inspired by it, I'd rather have a PM prepared to do it, than be regarded as an irrelevant backwater run by pussies too afriad to make a stand against repression and dictatorship. I just wish NZ wasn't already degraded to the school ball fat dateless frump. But we are, now we need to get the Clearsil out and smarten ourselves up a tad.

[weizguy]

"I just wish NZ wasn't already degraded to the school ball fat dateless frump. But we are, now we need to get the Clearsil out and smarten ourselves up a tad."

Yeah, we should smarten ourselves up, go to the gym (shed that anti-nuclear stance), accept the invitation to go to the prom with that hot stud the USA, and get ready to be date raped in the the back of his dad's chevy eldorado.

Hey, but it's all worth it for a free trade deal, right guys...?

[Tane W]

Whaleoil,

'...Ok it is a bugger to cop one and all but I bet if you had a poll of all the soldiers in combat units on whether or not to go and have a stoush they would all say yippee pick me.'

You have a point there. A lot of soldiers would be keen to go to Iraq, especially if the government coughs up some decent allowances (not necessarily a given, whether it's National or Labour). A large number have gone already, by the simple expedient of leaving the military, and taking 'security' contracts over there.

Mind you, if they thought about it and realised that there's a damn good chance of them going two or three times like many did in East Timor, that the operational intensity in Iraq guarantees that New Zealand soliders will die and be maimed, and then tried to think 'What the hell is this all about?', then many of them may not be so keen. I know that I'm not.

Young men think they're bullet-proof. Older men, with wives and kids, know they're not. Don't be so sure that the Army is foaming at the mouth for the chance to 'bring democracy to the Middle East'.

[Tane W]

I don't know why all you Labour and National supporters are claiming to be holier-than-thou, whiter than white and firmly ensconced in your Vestal Virgin temple up there on the moral high ground.

In the mud-wrestling that this pre-election campaign has become, both sides are fighting down and dirty. National may have started it with it's declaration that '...personality will be an issue...', but Labour has shown it's just as bad, if not worse (courtesy of Mr Mallard).

Stop arguing about who's the pure one. Neither of you are, nor are you likely to be. Focus on the important stuff, like policy, some form of national strategy and which one of you poor bastards is going to draw the short straw and end up having to form a government with Winston Peters......