Russel Norman’s entry, Hillary’s exit
Gordon Campbell on Russel Norman’s entry
and Hillary’s exit
As predicted on Scoop last Friday. former Green Party
MP Mike Ward has done a U-turn, and will now step aside to
enable Greens co- leader Russel Norman to become an MP. The
process of Nandor Tanczos exiting and Norman stepping into
his shoes should take a few weeks.
The usual jibes
will be leveled at Norman cynically wanting to get his hands
on taxpayer funded travel and office expenses, but such
criticisms are unfounded. Making Norman an MP (by the only
means available) is really the final recovery from the
impact of Rod Donald’s sudden death – which,
unexpectedly, left the best candidate to replace him
stranded outside Parliament.
The unsung hero of the
process has been list candidate Catherine Delahunty, who
quietly stepped aside at the outset – and who, if the
polls continue to hold up for the Greens, should also be an
MP by year’s end. Delahunty’s selfless and unifying role
throughout the Ward affair will only enhance her
considerable mana within the party, and the overall strength
of the party’s social justice faction.
Longer
term, the goodwill may enable Delahunty to serve next year
as a formidable numbers person for Sue Bradford - if and
when Bradford puts her name alongside Metiria Turei as a
possible candidate to replace Jeanette Fitzsimons as female
co-leader. On the weekend, Fitzsimons signalled that 2008
will be her last election campaign. That being so, one
could reasonably expect Fitzsimons and the party to want her
successor in place well before the 2011 election. Expect
the politicking to begin in earnest next year, with a
verdict at the 2010 annual
conference.
Finally it may be over. Later today, Hillary Clinton seems certain to pull the plug on her presidential nomination hopes. Is she a possible vice-presidential choice for Barrack Obama? Possible, but unlikely. Clinton could be both a vote winner and a rancorously divisive figure – both in the campaign against John McCain, and eventually within the White House as well, presuming she would still have her husband in tow. Her poisonous behaviour as a candidate – up to an including her tasteless reference to Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June, as a reason for still holding out hope, should rule her out.
Accepting Clinton on the
ticket would also kill Obama’s message of change, hope and
unity beyond the Democratic Party. Still, I thought the
conclave of cardinals in Rome couldn’t possibly choose
Joseph Ratzinger as Pope, for the same reasons. Yet they
did. Obama could try to satisfy some of the Clinton
holdouts by playing the gender card with a different woman
as his running mate – and there are some ale state
governors (especially Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, but also
Janet Napolitano of Arizona ) up to the job.
Trouble
is, they would look like second best, the non-Hillary. And
their presence ( the black guy, and the woman ) wouldn’t
do much to attract those elusive white working class voters
in Ohio, Florida and other swing states. If outright
pandering is the aim, as Chris Kelly says on the Huffington Post, why not go
the whole hog – old, southern, Hispanic, war mongering
and a woman so popular she’s a Broadway musical. Eva
Peron, in other words. But isn’t she um…like, dead?
Hey, as Kelly says, we’re running against John McCain.
Personally, I wish Obama would choose John Edwards, who put
poverty and healthcare into the campaign debates this year,
in ways that made those issues impossible for Clinton and
Obama to ignore. I think though, that he’ll ask
Virginia’s James Webb – a senator from a southern state with a military
service/ wounded in action record well able to match McCain.
If Hillary isn’t chosen, she can largely blame her
dickhead husband, once again. Right to the very last, the
Big Dog kept knocking over the furniture. Yesterday, during
the final primary Clinton push in South Dakota and Montana,
Bill Clinton was saying that this may
well be the ‘last day’ of political campaigning in his
career . So… isn’t that saying he doesn’t expect to
be campaigning for Obama, his party’s presidential
nominee? What a guy.
ENDS