“Not affiliated to any party”
The Herald on Sunday reports on how Rochelle Rees has google bombed John Key so a search of NZ sites on “clueless” will bring up his website.
This isn’t terribly difficult to do, especially if it is for .nz sites only. It is far far harder to do it for all searches.
Anyway I found it interesting that the HoS reported:
Auckland computer programmer Rochelle Rees told the Herald on Sunday she emailed friends a year ago, asking them to put links on their websites to Key’s site with the word “clueless” as the link text.
“More than anything, it’s fun,” said Rees, who said she was interested in politics but not affiliated to any party.
I found that interesting. For I could recall two things about Rochelle. One is that she is involved in Auckland Animal Action. The other is I was sure she was a member of Young Labour. And sure enough a quick Google search, and I find the answer on my own blog!
So Rochelle just last year was not just a member of Young Labour, but was elected onto its National Executive. So how is that not affiliated to any party?
I also found it amusing that that they are trying to suggest with their Google bombing that John Key is clueless. The bombing works better if it is an attribute that many people will agree with. They should have gone with “swallowing dead rats” or something. Because look at Key’s achievements:
- Hugely successful career in the private sector
- Rose to the top job in his area (global head of foreign exchange) in a company with 60,000 staff, $100 billion a year turnover and assets in excess of $1 trillion.
- So popular with his staff, colleagues and competitors than the SST couldn’t find a single person to speak badly of him, despite the fact he was in an industry with legendary rivalry
- Appointed to the Foreign Exchange Committee of the New York Federal Reserve
- Successfully challenged an incumbent MP for the Helensville 2002 nomination
- Made Opposition Finance Spokesperson after just two years in Parliament
- Unanimously elected National Party Leader after just four years in Parliament
- Within six months of being elected Opposition Leader, overtook Helen Clark as Preferred Prime Minister
- Has consistently polled as the most popular Leader of the Opposition since records began over 20 years ago
Need I go on?
UPDATE: Rochelle, far from being someone just interested in politics, was a candidate for City Vision in the local body elections. Also she was endorsed by the Labour affiliated EPMU as a preferred candidate. And her e-mail address is @primary.geek.nz which is mainatined by Labour Party member and The Standard owner – Lynn Prentice.
I have no problems with Rochelle having some fun Google bombing. Good on her. But once again we see the traditional pattern of behaviour where someone is portrayed as just “interested in politics but not affiliated to any party”, when the reality is quite different.
UPDATE2: The Herald on Sunday have updated their story and Rochelle has commented below. She says she told the reporter she wasn’t currently affiliated. And Lynn Prentice happens to be her uncle!