The main thrust of any would be Mt Albert MP’s campaign, should be what the people of Mt Albert get for an MP who will serve the interests of the constituency. Forget party policies for a minute and focus on **providing a service to Mt Albert**.

Any flavour MP could have it if they campaign to do just that. What did HC ever do for Mt Albert while MP? Surely she was too busy being top-dog to *really* serve Mt Albert (actually I think she was probably astute enough to serve Mt Albert quite faithfully – knowing who actually provided her with her powerbase, but it’s an angle worth going for).

So now’s the chance to show Mt Albert what a local MP without PM duties can do for them – Melissa should be claiming she will be there at every Transit meeting with residents about the proposed motorway, will campaign for them to ensure the design fulfills the needs of nearby residents so that property prices rise and not fall from the development (better access to transport links tends to result in increased value of properties), etc etc. – even badgering her MP colleagues in Parliament that are in charge of Transportation “working on the inside” for them. An MP in opposition would get less done for them etc. There are many ways to turn this campaign – but it starts from focusing on the needs of the local electorate and standing to be their champion in Parliament.

Focus always on the positives, and what she can do for them. Party politics as a basis for argument for how to vote should be relegated to the dustbin for this campaign.

my 2c

2) Lees chances of winning Mt Albert are about what they were before she was anounced as the candidate – somwhere between 0 and 1%… which is only a million times better than the greens chances.
But we all know the greens are there just for the national publicity.

Act on the other hand has exactly 0% chance.

are you telling us you are on the Green list? If not then how is what you are relevant to my observation?

Give Russel more muscle!

Well done Tuija, 31 fuckups by Melissa coinciding with 29 Kiwiblog posts about Mt Albert. I’ve checked, and I think you’ve got it pretty much right.

Pity we can’t use the html table tag here though – would have made your post much more concise.

If John Key and Bill English believed your line, do you really think they would have ever agreed to a MoU? Actually, if they had believed your line, they probably would have passed legislation to ban the Green Party by now – under urgency, like they allowed Rodney Hide to do with the legislation to take away the local democracy of people living in the Auckland region.

Toad, you are fucken dreaming. What was the public opinion survey question? – do you care about the environment – or do you want the Greens as your coalition partner? – yeah, I’ll bet it was some obscure question

I also think you’re confused about why so many Nats supporters detest the Greens “hard anti-environment right” – nothing to do with anti environment, but everything to do with communists pretending to be environmentalists

Because, Patrick, you and I (and jarbury) are activists. We don’t see things the way most voters do.

I can’t quote you sources because this is from confidential public opinion survey information, but I can tell you that approximately 30% of National Party voters would prefer the Green Party as National’s coalition partner.

Scary for those of you out there on the hard anti-environment right, isn’t it, but I’m afraid that’s the way the public sees it.

Yiou honeslty believe we want to really piss Labour off by throwing the greens a life line? – (go back to your joint)

1) Melissa Lee is clearly out of the running.
2) Lots of borderline Greens/Labour voters will now feel safe voting Greens, knowing their vote won’t split the centre-left.
3) It would really piss Labour off losing Mt Albert.
4) The Greens got 3,846 party votes in the 08 election in Mt Albert, Act got 1,227. So Boscawen doesn’t really have a hope of winning it.

pfffft…..snigger snigger…..BAW HAHA LMFAO