KEY POINTS:
Those attending the National Party conference this weekend will be group-pinching themselves with delight over the dream run that the leader, John Key, has had since his bloodless coup against Don Brash.
It appears their new leader can do little wrong.
Provided the Nats don't do anything stupid, only the staunchest Labour loyalist would put money against them cruising into government at the next election.
But in a timely reminder not to get too confident, Key made his first slip this week when he was caught out by cabinet minister Annette King over apparent fibbing about whether or not he was consulted on the Therapeutics Products and Medicine Bill. I suppose his earlier success over bailing out Labour in the anti-smacking legislation made him feel that he would get even more kudos if he did a similar stunt.
Despite Labour's relief that he has been caught out, his misstep won't dent his or his party's popularity. What Labour will be hoping is that because of this incident, the media will from now on put Key under more scrutiny than they have to date.
No one mentions it now, but National does owe Don Brash a lot of credit for their recent success. Politics is never fair, but Brash has a right to feel hard done by, given that he came from nowhere to almost pipping the Labour Party at the last election. But in the end he was always an accident waiting to happen. Ultimately he can only blame himself for his demise.
If he had tried to stay as leader at the same time Nicky Hagar's The Hollow Men was launched, not only would he have been personally discredited, but the support for the party would have collapsed as well.
When Key made his move on Brash he made two crucial decisions which gave him the basis for his recent success: First, he got Brash to fall on his sword, and amazingly got away with not appointing Brash to his front bench, and even better, got him to resign from Parliament. Now, it's almost as if Brash never existed. Second, Key had Bill English appointed as his deputy leader and finance spokesman. This has delivered him a united front bench and the support of the rural and social conservative factions of the party. This ensured he got a political heavyweight as his right-hand.
The success of the Labour Government has, to a large extent, been because of the strong partnership of Helen Clark and Michael Cullen. Their opponents have clearly modelled their leadership on that duo, and there is no reason why it won't be as successful.
Key's strategy of not promoting any new policy at this time has enabled his party to be seen as moderate and mainstream. Under Brash's leadership, National was looking like the offspring of the Ruth Richardson brigade. Key's leadership is making it harder and harder to see any real differences between the two main parties.
The best differentiation that National could come up with this week was a half-hearted plug to get the unemployed into work schemes. With record employment numbers, and bosses screaming for low-paid workers, what does National think they were doing? Key is not a panderer to redneck politics that Brash seemed to revel in. So the decision on the eve of their party conference to stick this old bogey up was, I presume, to appease the good ole boys playing up this weekend.
The hard-right must be in a terrible quandary. They know that Key and English are moderates. But they know they have to bite their tongues given that this pair are the only ticket they have to defeat Labour.
It is a bit surprising that the centrist makeover of the National Party would have allowed Act to rise in popularity. In fact, the opposite is true. A decision this week by the National Party hierarchy to allow Richard North to contest a seat in Epsom against Rodney Hide pretty much allows a free run in maintaining his seat. There is no chance Act will get over 5 per cent of the vote, but a victory by Hide may get his party a couple more MPs.
On National's current polling they can theoretically rule alone. But during the election campaign period itself, the bigger parties tend to fall back somewhat and the third party vote increases. If Hide and Peter Dunne win their seats and bring a few hangers-on with them, the centre-right have a good chance to rule next year.
Of course, party conferences these days are only a backdrop for adoring standing ovations by the masses for their leaders - and this conference will be especially so.
There is nothing like the smell of power for Tories to unite.
The challenge for Key and other National Party leaders is to ensure their party faithful do not start relaxing and thinking that they've already won the next election. As everyone knows, Clark has seen off more National Party leaders than any other political leader in modern times. She's a class act and she is still the preferred Prime Minister. Person on person, she's more impressive than Key. She will clean up her front bench before the election, and she will make sure that enough lame-duck MPs are put down and new talent is promoted.
Clark has made an incredible contribution to the Labour Party, and she will be determined to become a fourth-term Prime Minister.
So while the National Party will bask in their leader's popularity this weekend, they better not forget that if a week is a long time in politics, then a year is an eternity.
