For National, the Mt Roskill by-election loss could have been much worse. They could have had an Asenati Lole-Taylor on their hands, the troublesome New Zealand First MP who drove her boss Winston Peters hoarse trying to explain the inexplicable.
If the confusing Parmjeet Parmar had pulled it off, her removal from the National list would have brought Misa Fia Turner into the hallowed halls, the woman who believes Donald Trump was anointed by God and who believes in stigmata, or body marks and pain that corresponds to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. As the next person on the National list she might end up in Parliament anyway and has won the support of National's president Peter Goodfellow who says, unlike Labour, his party welcomes people of all ethnicities and cultures. Perhaps he really means eccentricities.
In Michael Wood, we've got something of a Phil Goff clone, centrist, clean cut and earnest. And it didn't take opinion polls to tell us he would win. Just think of it, a National win would have been right up there with Brexit and Trump, given this electorate has flown the red flag since its inception, or as John Key put it, since Adam was a cowboy - he clearly knows something that we don't!
The writing was always on the ballot paper for a Labour win in what geographically is a small electorate, the third smallest in the country. There was little excuse for a poor turnout of voters.
Other than Wood, the others would have known they were on a hiding to nothing. In an electorate where almost 70 percent of voters said they'd never smoked wicked weed, the Legalise Cannabis Party, with an appropriately named candidate, a Brandon Stronge, never stood a show.
