Almost overlooked it – Trotter on Friday

I almost overlooked this – Chris Trotter’s column on Friday in the Dominion Post. Trotter advocates more stringly than his previous hints that Labour should make Goff Leader if they want a chance of a fourth term:

Prime Minister Helen Clark’s fast-dwindling coterie of media allies tell us it would be madness. The throng of political journalists hanging around John Key agree. But what, exactly, is mad about the idea of replacing Helen Clark with Phil Goff?

According to the latest Fairfax-Nielsen poll, Labour is now more popular than its leader. That suggests the Government’s catastrophic numbers are being driven by Miss Clark’s unpopularity not the party’s.

This marks an important shift in the electorate’s response. For most of the past eight years the prime minister has consistently outperformed her party in popularity. She was Labour’s greatest asset, the wind beneath its wings. She has now become the lump of lead on its back.

A lump of lead.  Trotter is not going for a subtle approach.

In that respect, at least, Peter Dunne is right about New Zealand’s race for the Beehive being similar to the Democratic Party’s race in the United States for the White House.

In their affinity for political managerialism, Helen and Hillary are alike. But, do Mr Key’s speeches echo our own electorate’s hunger for “Hope” and “Change” in the way Barack Obama’s echo America’s?

Yes, in a strange way they do. Mr Key may not be as effective a speaker as Mr Obama, but his personal political narrative (poor boy raised by a solo mum, who transcends his humble origins to achieve remarkable success) is strikingly similar – and so is the way voters have loaded their deep longing for fresh explanations and new beginnings on to the young challenger’s shoulders.

While I think a direct comparison to Obama is silly, Trotter may be right in terms of the analysis of voters looking for a new beginning.

Labour’s caucus needs to get its head around this – and soon. Because the longer it delays replacing Miss Clark as leader, the more time it is allowing for the voters to convince themselves (if they have not already done so) that Mr Key is the prime minister they are looking for.

Ever since the moment a panicked Clark agreed to the compromise on the smacking bill, Key has looked like a prime minister in waiting.

But the electorate does not need to turn to National for “Hope” and “Change”. Indeed, history suggests that the Right is incapable of delivering change or hope in ways remotely beneficial to working people.

But “Hope” and “Change” are Labour’s stock-in-trade: it’s what the party does, has always done.

Miss Clark admirably fulfilled the hopes, and proudly delivered the changes demanded by the zeitgeist of 1999.

If Mr Goff has the wit and the courage to embrace the zeitgeist of 2008, there is no reason why Labour shouldn’t win its fourth term.

Well I can think of a few reasons, and am not convinced that Goff would do better than Clark. The danger for Clark is if any MPs start to think probable disaster is preferable to guaranteed disaster.