Brashgasm!

Well look who's back to save the day!

Don Brash is truly a unique and compelling politician, and for a second time, he has openly and publicly challenged the incumbent leader of a political party. Will it work for him again?

I have to say first of all that the political strategist in me thinks this is all a very bad idea. I share many of David Farrar's concerns. I remain of the firm belief that the best, and probably only way to fully implement good laissez faire government in New Zealand remains through the National Party. Even though Key's government makes me yearn for the "good old days" of Shipley and Creech(!), you are never going to get an ACT (or Brash Party) Government, and it is always going to be through National that laissez faire policies will be implemented. It then becomes a question of how you get National to do it. Do you work within National and take them along with you? Or do you pummel them from the outside and hope to bully them into doing it? For about 17 years now, most classical liberals have been doing the latter. How's that working out for ya?

Still, if anyone could make that strategy work, it would be Don Brash, a former National Party leader who doubled National's vote, and remains the only party leader in living memory to be pushed out while his party was ahead in the polls. So while the political strategist in me is dismayed, the political geek in me feels a bit like a child who has had too much food colouring. Short of winning an election itself, Brash's re-entry into the fray is about as exciting as it can get in New Zealand politics.

It would be one of those great ironic twists if Brash ended up saving ACT - after all, he was the one responsible for their dip below 5% in the first place. Even more ironically, Rodney Hide probably owes his leadership of ACT to Brash. Without Brash, ACT would have stayed at 5% in the polls, there would be no victory in Epsom, and it would probably be Stephen Franks taking over from a retiring Prebble instead.

Will ACT bite? I agree with John Armstrong that as long as Hide remains leader, ACT is screwed. It seems pretty obvious that the Brash deal is the best offer that they are ever going to get, and they would be fools to turn it down. In fact, I would say they have little choice to refuse. A Brash Party(TM) would almost guarantee the demise of ACT. It's possible Brash is bluffing on that score - setting up a new party is much much more difficult than one might suppose, but essentially he has said to ACT "I'm doing this, with or without you. Jump on board or face oblivion."

The major obstacle would be the ACT women. Calvert has already said she supports Hide, and would look pretty silly to u-turn. And Roy's chances of re-election, ironically, are non-existent unless Brash did set up his own party and she jumped ship. So there's Rodney's three votes!

Either scenario sounds like good fun to me. Welcome back Don Brash!! (We missed you. A lot)