Te Tai Tokerau by-election: comments

Well, for no money and with no polling here is how I did:

TS v. Actual
55% v. 48.3% (-6.7%) Harawira
35% v. 40.9% (+5.9%) Davis
10% v. 8.8% (-1.2%) Tipene

12-14,000 v. 11,606 + 1,916 specials = 13,522 TURNOUT

Not too bad considering specials haven't been counted and the weather was far better than was forecast. Inside the band with the turnout too.

As Morgan Godfery has noted at some length most Pakeha pundits can't read the Maori electorates and made woefully inaccurate calls on Davis winning - Guyon Espiner and Duncan Garner among them. Usually explained in most part by a lack of information in this instance it is most definitely also a case a wishful thinking. Using a Pakeha ruler to measure Maori things and as always coming up short.

The mainstream, ie. Pakeha, media are Hone haters because he's a Maori that doesn't take any shit from the white man. They fear him and they oppose him for his independence and cultural integrity - everything that was supposed to have been bred out and beaten out of the subjugated native population by the colonial process and a living reminder on TV every night that Maori exist and articulate their own position - a position that challenges Pakeha domination and the way Pakeha think NZ should be. They don't like him for being him because that is his greatest strength.

That Hone may cross the racial divide and lead a party with Pakeha inside is a terrifying prospect for the establishment, it makes him even more dangerous. The Pakeha commentators - including the PM - were praying for a Kelvin Davis win. Barry Soper I noted at the time was calling it for Davis. Now this at ZB from the sore loser, Soper:

The man who recently described Osama bin Laden as a freedom fighter for his people and who labelled his former Parliamentary colleagues as a bunch of dickheads is now back in Parliament.

Titiwhai's boy Hone Harawira spent half a million bucks to get the mandate to represent his constituents in the far north and on Saturday he got it.

His majority at the last election was 6,300 but he couldn't even manage to pull in that number of votes at the by election. Just 5,611 punters gave him the tick, delivering his Mana Party to Parliament with a majority over Labour of just 867.

They say you've got to spend money to make money and that's what he's done because he'll now earn a lot more as a party leader than he did as a Maori Party MP and then an independent. Unfortunately the money is shelled out by the long suffering taxpayer but Hone says that's the price of democracy.
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Amazing how loose the commentators become when their hate gets the better of them: Hone 'spent half a million bucks' on the by-election? Even if you billed him for all the voting expenses and all the rival campaigns would it really be half a million? Preposterous numbers thrown around with no source and then use that wild assertion to claim some personal reason to hate (on behalf of all taxpayers). Can't recall him making those sorts of vehement comments about the Botany by-election which was held earlier this year and had a lower turnout? Then again he is writing for the red necks - here's a flavour of the comments:By racists for racists - that's ZB.