KEY POINTS:
It was George W Bush, so often a stranger to wisdom, who recently said: "I've been in politics long enough to know that polls just go poof at times." This country has just experienced its very own "poof" moment.
A series of polls has not only ended the Helen Clark hegemony as preferred PM but has also put John Key's National Party in a position to govern alone. These polls now present our two major political parties with new, but very different, sets of challenges.
In reality, National will not be able to govern alone. What we've just encountered is what politicians refer to as a "vertigo poll". Buoyed by new and vibrant leadership, National is riding the popular opinion wave, while Labour is being smashed about among the breakers. But Key will make mistakes during the next year, and some disenchanted Labourites will return to the flock. So National needs partners, and it needs to move now.
Under Don Brash, National and the Maori Party would not so much have been uneasy bedfellows as completely incompatible. That's all changing now, but the reason is not necessarily Key's more measured approach to race relations.
Behind the scenes, Bill English and Tariana Turia are forging close ties that could pay off handsomely for both parties, come election time. While the thought of an alignment with National might still be anathema to many of Turia's constituents, those concerns will no doubt be salved with one or two significant policy concessions, particularly around foreshore and seabed legislation. Anyway, Maori could be justified in asking what Labour has done for them this term.
There is more chance of a moa sighting than there is of a National-Greens alliance, but United Future leader Peter Dunne could not have made it any clearer last week that he is itching to break free of Labour's chains (or hitch a ride with a winning ticket, you take your pick).
Act is National's natural partner in all respects but for one major sticking point: unless Rodney Hide pulls off another quickstep miracle, as he did at the last election, Act might not, and probably does not deserve to, exist. The most likely case for Act's continuing existence is if it returns to politicking or if it makes a deal with National for Epsom. Key and Hide would no doubt prefer the former.
Where does NZ First stand? We're not sure whether even the great chameleon Winston Peters knows. Whatever way you cut it, there is no way Key and company want to rely on NZ First to form a government.
The challenges facing Labour are greater. It is being beaten at every turn and seems to have run out of fresh ideas. Even in the debating chamber, where Clark and her deputy Michael Cullen have lorded it for the past decade, Labour looks less assured.
Part of the problem is Cullen. He is experiencing what the modern vernacular would term a "disconnect".
The Budget was a classic example. Here was a man who has done more than any other to prove a Labour-led government can be trusted with the economy, completely failing, or completely unwilling, to understand why voters don't see the issue of tax cuts the same way he does.
If the Budget told Clark anything, it's that Cullen might not be able to win the next election, but he can certainly lose it.
Elsewhere, Labour has found itself far too preoccupied with matters that divide the public but which actually serve very little purpose towards the running of the country. For an experienced government to get so bogged down in first the smacking debate and now an argument over Parliament's Christian prayer is unforgivable.
Labour needs to reassess what's important to New Zealanders, and the announcement of changes to the NCEA was a start. If it needs fresh faces to deliver those messages, then so be it, but any significant changes will have to be effected quickly.
This fifth Labour Government has not been a bad one, but it is now looking a tired one. To borrow a phrase from Valencia, National is coming home with a wet sail. We don't need a "poof" poll to tell us that.
