Media7 on Labour's flop campaign

In addition to a bunch of stuff about past spin doctors and an interesting segment about the Maori Party and what its members up north have been trying to do for the local communities, the election night special of Russell Brown Media7 show had some interesting discussion about the recent campaign.

It broadcast in the hour before results started coming in, so they didn't know the results but I feel quite accurately identified how New Zealand voters felt about a campaign based on US-style attack politics against John Key (rather than Labour realising that they are really competing with people not bothering to vote at all, which is in fact what happened – and contributed substantially to such a poor result for them, having seen it swing back a substantial way to them earlier due to the international financial crisis) – and the much-noted habit of NZ voter to want a change of government every 3-4 terms (regardless of how many policies they've liked that have been established in the terms).

It's interesting to note also that they picked today's news that John Key would bring the Maori Party into coalition even though he didn't need to to form a strict numerical majority – giving him more options for support and potentially gaining a very important future ally, while looking like much more a consensus leader than many voters have previously expected of the National Party.