NZ POLITICS DAILY: Another day, another bad opinion poll for Goff

Another day, another bad opinion poll story for Phil Goff and Labour. John Armstrong reports on the Herald’s poll-of-polls, to show that Labour is now in real trouble of losing incumbent list MPs like Stuart Nash and Steve Chadwick – see: Labour list MPs under threat.

Such polls-of-polls use a very credible methodology: by aggregating all the polls and thereby ironing out any individual rogue poll results and reducing the various mechanical biases of each poll. For the last general election, such a poll-of-polls methodology proved to be the most accurate predictor of the final election result – for more on this, see my 2009 blog post, Opinion polls and prediction markets.

Labour’s troubles continue to be embodied by the leadership of Phil Goff. The latest North & South magazine is worth purchasing for the feature story on Goff entitled, The Loneliness of Phil Goff. In this, author Mike White followed Goff for a month and tries to explain how the public has come to have ‘an image of 58-year-old Goff as weak, bland and with no hope of winning an election.’ The problem is quickly identified: ‘nobody seems to know much about him’, and ‘to most, he's just a cardboard-cut-out politician -featureless, beige, perishable’.

An attempt is clearly being made in the article to show that Goff’s more than just the bland leading the bland – that he has real personality and warmth to rival John Key. So friends and colleagues are interviewed, and everyone keeps to the script, which is epitomized by one quote: ‘This is the saddest, saddest thing about the way people perceive him – they don't realise how much fun he is’.

The North & South writer also conveys how Labour is battling to reinvent Goff in various ways, but ultimately in failure: ‘when Goff does try and show his personality - motorcyclist Phil, farming Phil, Warriors fan Phil - it appears contrived because they don't fit the caricature, despite being completely genuine’; ‘Attempts to freshen his image such as dyeing his hair and abandoning a tie for the casual look are often interpreted as tragic or try-hard’.

A bigger problem than his perceived lack of personality can be read between the lines of the article: that no one really knows what Goff stands for beyond platitudes and ambitions. An attempt is made by the Goff himself, his friends, and the sympathetic author to show him to be a man of principle. But again this falls very flat. Instead we find that he has incredibly flexible principles: a leftwing socialist activist in the 1970s, through to a neoliberal radical championing Rogernomics in the 1980s, to apparently now in 2011 suddenly regretting his role in asset sales and so forth.

A sense is conveyed that, as with many Labour MPs, Goff is the master of political chameleon, which is part of his credibility problem. And although his friend Mike Rann (the South Australian premier) is brought into the story to say that Goff ‘doesn't duck and weave, he isn't into fads’, this is exactly the impression you get of the ambitious politician. Backing this up, the David Lange’s assessment is cited: ‘Phil Goff liked to be in the majority’.

An even better quote comes in the article from Chris Trotter, who really hits the nail on the head: ‘Why does he want to be prime minister? What does he want to do apart from all the platitudes – New Zealand to be prosperous and free and all those other mum-and-apple-pie sentiments? Does he have a mission he wants to accomplish? I don't know’.

The writer also observes the technocratic Goff give a speech, in which he lacks signs of a heartfelt beliefs: ‘there seemed to be a vacuum of visible passion. It was analysis rather than a call to arms, reasoned rather than rallying. You wanted to shout out, "Find the fire in your belly, Phil."’

Reading the article, we find that Goff comes up with the perennial favourite of politicians for explaining lack of success or popularity: ‘Goff is pissed off with the endless parade of publicity for the Prime Minister - he raises it regularly as a reason for struggling in the polls’. But it’s not just the polls either: ‘Goff has 4000 Twitter followers, Key nearly 25,000. Key's Face book page has 61,000 likes, Goff's fewer than 4000. Goff lacks amplification’.

So, yes, this in depth article achieves its aim of making Goff appear more human and personable, but in terms of discovering the leaders’ own politics the reader won’t find much that is very convincing. The author says that ‘Goff is defined in the public's mind as a career politician’. And the article doesn’t seem to do much to refute that idea.

Bryce Edwards, NZPD Editor (bryce.edwards@otago.ac.nz)

Today’s content:

Election

John Armstrong (NZH): Labour list MPs under threat

Editorial (Southland Times): Horses, dogs or puppies

Vernon Small (Dom Post): Cup fever must not distract MPs

TVNZ: Economy and Christchurch key issues for next govt - PM

Bryce Edwards (liberation): Dunedin likely to stick with red

Mike White (North & South): The Loneliness of Phil Goff [Not available online]

Education

Jim Chipp (Wellingtonian): Election 2011: Schoolyard battlegrounds

Imogen Neale (Stuff): 'Rebel schools' drop national standards protest