Tuesday, August 30, 2022

Just in case you forgot what Tory Whanau looks like, the Dom Post has some more photos of her

I remarked to a friend this morning that if the Wellington mayoralty is determined by the number of times Tory Whanau’s photo appears on the Dominion Post website, she’s a shoo-in. The other candidates might as well go home.

From the time the paper reported her campaign launch in June with a massive splash of publicity – one that could be described as unprecedented for a candidate virtually no one outside the Green Party had heard of (note the four photos, plus a video) – Whanau has been given the type of exposure her rivals can only dream of.

Today the Dom Post website featured not one but two stories simultaneously about the Green Party-backed candidate, both accompanied by prominent photos. The stories concerned a petty spat with fellow contender Paul Eagle over the placement of billboards, so were of no great consequence, but when I checked at midday one was the lead item on the website. Whanau’s face was the first thing readers saw.

If you accept that facial and name recognition are crucial in local government elections, especially when voters often have little else to go on, Whanau may have a head start even against putative frontrunner Eagle, a former deputy mayor who became Labour MP for Rongotai and now appears to have had second thoughts about the wisdom of that career move.

You can see why the Dom Post loves Whanau. She’s young, Maori, female and Green; the dream woke candidate. Eagle ticks only one of those boxes, and against that, he’s a bloke.

But is the Wellington mayoralty Whanau’s real objective? The above-mentioned friend, who’s a lot more politically savvy than I am, speculates that the true purpose of her tilt at the mayoralty is to build her profile with the aim of securing a high place on the Greens’ list in next year’s general election.

It’s called doing a Chloe, after the Green Party wunderkind who made a well-publicised bid for the Auckland mayoralty in 2016, subsequently got on the Greens’ list at No 7 and was ultimately rewarded with the Auckland Central seat.

In fact if Whanau really is modelling herself on Chloe Swarbrick, I wonder whether she might have her eyes on Wellington Central. She’d have to elbow aside the party’s 2020 candidate, James Shaw, but anything’s possible with the Greens. And it’s worth noting that Wellington Central (aka Woke Central) was where they won their biggest share of the party vote in 2020, with 30 percent – far higher than the 19 percent support achieved in Swarbrick’s constituency.

Whatever Whanau’s strategy, she can only benefit from the apparent undeclared endorsement of Wellington’s daily paper. What the steadily diminishing number of Dom Post readers might think of it is another matter.


 

 

10 comments:

  1. You are so right. The good old Dom is being destroyed by its editor and commentators. I’d like to have been able to say journalists but you people no longer exist. Just the left’s cheerleaders.

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    Replies
    1. Hear, hear! Never a truer word spoken.

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  2. Same sort of MO that stuff and the Herald have for other candidates elsewhere.
    Who is involved in conspiracies, who owes money...etc.

    What next who has ancestors that had slaves, whose cousin or husband is a convicted criminal .....no nothing like that.....

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  3. Are there any reliable figure available for the DomPost's circulation now, and how many hits their articles on its website get?

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  4. Here is a Fun & Interesting US Survey with interesting National Results. Before you read the Survey Results, answer the questions yourself and see how you score compared to the National Replies – and compared to the Facts.

    The Questions

    · What percentage of the country is black?
    · What percentage of marriages are mixed race?
    · What percentage is Latino?
    · How many families make over $500,000 a year?
    · What percentage of Americans are vegetarians?
    · What percentage of Americans live in NY city?
    · What percentage of Americans are transgender?
    · What percentage of your fellow citizens are Gay?

    The Poll Results

    · What percentage of the country is black? Answers 41%... Actual 12%. If you watch commercials, you would think it is 90%.
    · What percentage of marriages are mixed race? Answer 50%... Actual 1%. If you watch commercials, you would think it is 90%.
    · What percentage is Latino? Answers 39%... Actual numbers 17%.
    · How many families make over $500,000 a year? Answers 26%... Actual figure 1%. We think a quarter of the country is rich.
    · What percent of Americans are vegetarians? Response? 30%… Actual 5%.
    · What percent of Americans live in NY city? Answers? 30%... Actual 3%.
    · What percentage of Americans are transgender? Answers? 22%... Actual number 1%
    · What percentage of your fellow citizens are Gay? Result? 30%... Actual 3%

    So why do people have such inaccurate thoughts on these groups? THE MEDIA! The media run race, gender, and wealth stories constantly. Result? You are being brainwashed by the national left with the media. Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels would be proud if he had half the success.
    Disney just went full-on “gender.” They will no longer welcome guests with the traditional “Welcome ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls” Why? Because 1% of the population dictates to the other 99% (that would be the vast majority) and corporate America falls for it.
    Regardless of what you think, less than 20% of Americans use “Twitter” yet Twitter controls 80% of public opinion. Why? The media.
    Next time you find yourself thinking Americans have changed and not in a good way, remember, it’s fake. It’s all a lie. Most people think just as you do, but the media influences Americans with constant broadcasting of “LIES.”

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  5. I also noted Karl’s casual hint re “steadily diminishing number of DomPost readers” (and with some pleasure, if I may add!). The lady who bought STUFF for a dollar is about to lose her investment, isn’t she? She proved to be no Rupert Murdoch. They are surviving only thanks to the Pravda fund plus all the huge government advertising contracts to educate us dim plebs re Covid and climate change (that nobody ever reads!), aren’t they?

    When will STUFF be forced into bankruptcy?

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  6. Come to Hawkes Bay and you'll see billboards everywhere with Anna Lorck and Stuart Nash's images. Heil to the beloved leader.

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  7. I won't be voting for any Green or Labour candidate for one reason only.
    They take their orders from HQ.

    I have not forgotten M/s Genter's letter to Labour Mayor Justin, who made a decision benefiting Greens & Labour over us the ratepayers, under threat of M/s Genters power as a Minister.

    I did not vote for him.
    Then I found out about the clauses in their membership rules to obey the Party.

    So Paul Eagle is off the list for me, as he is Labour, though you wouldn't know it from his branding being yellow not red.
    I will not vote for duplicitous people and that and his putting up frames ahead of time is a turn off for me.
    I ask myself, where does it stop ?

    Same with Iona Pannett and Sarah Free, who are off my list as Greens, as even though they state they are independents, they've been Green for donkeys years.

    Iona before she gave Sean Rush the hospital pass of Chair of the Infrastructure Committee, for the previous 2 terms Iona Pannett was Chair of that very committee, but she with Sarah Free drove Cycle Lanes, not Pipes !
    I don't remember one alarming yearly press release bemoaning the lack of funding for the pipes!

    I just see it (their becoming independents) as a great way to introduce more branded Greens with no name recognition onto the WCC with themselves.

    No, I want business orientated people, pref Builders, Engineers, Lawyers, Accountants who are independents and will work for us, the ratepayers of Wellington.

    They will properly price everything and make sure the infrastructure is sorted before Festivals and other pet Projects.
    with an eye on the future to bring rates under control, even if that means we tighten our belts.
    A cost neutral social housing policy
    with an up to date costing of all projects costs, including ongoing yearly costs per ratepayer.....

    This is what we need and deserve, not woke/Gaia driven/Dreamers.

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  8. Why am I not surprised? The DomPost has created an online poll seemingly designed for the Good Folk of the Aro Valley to click their support for Tory Whanau, and is now boasting that she is way ahead of all other candidates. In something as grossly unscientific as this, and given the domination of the Twitterati on Stuff (its journos and target readers), she couldn't possibly not be so far ahead.

    I will be watching with great interest on election day to see how the Twitter/Stuff candidate fares. And I will also be watching to see how fare all the many candidates Stuff and the Twitterati are campaigning against all over the country because they hold the Wrong View.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/129847685/tory-whanau-clear-leader-in-straw-poll-for-wellington-mayoralty

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  9. Stuff's brazen partisanship in the Wellington mayoralty contest is a disgrace. It would be more honest if they openly declared their bias rather than push Whanau's candidacy by giving her favourable editorial treatment.

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