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In New York, I watched the Primary returns come in that rewarded Senator Barack Obama and his message of hope telling Americans, “Yes, we can.”  I was with mainly liberal Democrats of my vintage who hadn’t seen anything like this since the days of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, Jr. The discussions turned to the nature of hope, the leadership of inspiration and aspiration. 

Someone whispered, “I hope nothing happens to him.”  Mindful of the mindless murder of earlier heroes, the conversation drifted to the call for noble sacrifice and the courage necessary to lead, not reflect interests.  John F. Kennedy’s Pulitzer prize-winning book, ‘Profiles in Courage’, offered some insight into political courage. Kennedy said, “In whatever arena of life we may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience - the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men - each man must decide for himself the course he will follow.”  The book records great acts of political courage, where eight US Senators defied public opinion or crossed party lines to do what they believed was right.

All showed courage and most paid the ultimate political price. Defeat and oblivion. Edmund Burke famously explained the role of a Parliamentarian is not to be a representative only, a delegate, but one who owes the people both their industry and their judgement.  Sometimes you need to oppose the majority, try to survive and create a new majority.  Politicians in corners don’t often lie, their compromise is to say nothing.  I’ve had a number of mute politicians confide that they agree with my attacks on the Electoral Finance Act.  Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” 

In the US, kids queued from 4:00 a.m. to hear Senator Obama, and chanted, “There is no white, there is no black.”  Nelson Mandela said, “There are no white South Africans, there are no black South Africans, there are only South Africans.”  It would take courage to say that in NZ.  It would be libelled as ‘insensitive’.

Leaders can be too good at politics, too good at maintaining unity at any price, thus snuffing out internal dissent, taking from themselves the value of argument, scrutiny and difference.  Questioning the direction in itself becomes treason.  The most powerful word in political management is ‘unity’.  MMP compounds this problem, it has created systemic, chronic cowardice.  Electorate MP’s can build a local firewall, when things are difficult they work harder around their local communities.  They then reflect what they find at party caucuses.  A measure of independence is rewarded by loyal local voters.

Under MMP, the incentives to prosper are reversed.  Instead of standing up for local interests, MP’s must suck up to the party bosses, telling them how wonderful they are, how loved, and how indispensable .  Being dropped down the party list means you are ‘road kill’, no matter how hard you work, no matter what you stand for.  This gives enormous, unhealthy power to nameless party officials. 

Keith Holyoake said, “An ounce of loyalty is worth a ton of ability,” but he also said, “Tell the people and trust the people.”  What use is that under MMP when your name is not high on the list?  This is also why you can’t name most of the list MP’s, they don’t make a name for themselves because their name doesn’t matter. The American system has many attractions, over 20% of the people in some places have a vote on who will be the party nominees. In NZ, a tiny, anonymous group will make the decisions of who will speak in your name, for your political brand.

Opinion polls make cowards of us all. Politics is so well-managed that risk, this courage, is removed from the process. If Chamberlain followed opinion polls after Munich and “peace in our time”, he may have won a general election in a landslide. Churchill could have been destroyed.  But he had an electorate, a local island of support that may have seen him through.  In May 1940, Conservative grandees were attracted to yet another peace deal, further appeasement.  The deal was to be brokered by Mussolini.  A Nobel Prize for President Franklin Roosevelt (like his cousin, Teddy Roosevelt), was not out of the question.

At a critical meeting, Churchill growled, “People who go down fighting, rise again.  People who surrender disappear.”  True, too, of politicians.

To those who live by opinion polls, the final, most profound words on political courage are those of Martin Luther King, Jr.:

“Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?

 Expediency asks the question - is it politic?

 Vanity asks the question - is it popular?

 But conscience asks the question - is it right?

 A position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular,

But one must take it because it is right.”

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