Amusing reverse psycho analysis

Danyl Mc tweeted today:

So I’m guessing your polls now have soft-National voters leaning towards the Greens?

Danyl is not the only one convinced that my choice of topics is driven by “polls”, especially those secret ones only a few people know about.

Presumably this is because I blogged today whacking at the Greens on fracking and also on a climate change scandal overseas.

Now the reality is I decide what to blog basically when I read a news item, or if someone brings something to my attention by way of blog comment, twitter or e-mail. I don’t have a library or inventory of stories held in reserve, which I release based on what the polls are indicating.

And a simple check would show that the fracking story only appeared in the media today, and the climate change story was alerted to me today via a comment in a blog thread.

But even if one puts that to one side, what I find equally fascinating is that Danyl and others think that I have a belief that me blogging something can actually drive swinging National voters away from the Greens. As if a couple of extra blog posts from me of fracking will suddenly push the Greens down 2% in the next round of polls. I’d love to have such power, but the reality is the impact from blogging is modest.

My choice of topics in a day generally receives about as much thought or pre-consideration as deciding whether to stand up or sit down at the toilet. I don’t think about it much except when I am up against the deadline!

Sometimes there will be themes to what I blog, and they are pretty obvious. I obviously campaigned against the Electoral Finance Act, campaign for a republic, for VSM, for keeping the alcohol purchase age 18 etc. I’m starting to campaign on the foreign crewed fishing vessels issue, and will keep blogging on that when there is material to do so.

But to those who think my choice of blogging topics is influenced by secret polls, well I’ll probably never convince you otherwise because you are of course certain you are right and have the ability to read my mind. To be honest, I don’t want to convince you. It is far more amusing to sit back and consider how much time you spend on trying to psycho-analyse my choice of topics, and what you think that means the polls are showing.