KEY POINTS:
Almost half of us don't realise there is a general election in New Zealand later this year, according to a recent survey. The political chattering classes must throw their arms up in horror at this mass ignorance of the lumpen population. In fact, polls have consistently shown that a huge slice of the electorate has no idea that we get two votes - one for an electorate candidate and the other for a party.
Less surprising is that most of us don't have any idea which vote is more important. Despite spending millions of our tax dollars in explaining our election system to us, the boffins at the Electoral Commission must think we are a nation of bozos.
But oddly enough, 80 per cent of people entitled to vote pop down to the local voting booth and have no trouble voting for an electorate candidate and the party of their choice. Only a handful make a mistake. So our politicos shouldn't worry. It's just that our national politics are, well, boring.
Our present Prime Minister and the wannabe prime minister make being boring an art form. I think we like that about them. In fact, our political system was designed to be boringly concessional. It was designed to stop politics being adversarial and interesting. Mind you, after Robert Muldoon, followed by Roger Douglas, followed by Ruth Richardson, you can hardly blame us for wanting a bit of peace and predictability.
And as the world becomes more global we realise that our national politics which once we thought was so important is really inconsequential.
The last politician who pretended our country could make independent decisions on our economy was Muldoon, and he was dumped three decades ago. Deep down, we know we are a small outpost attached to Australia, a sort of East Tasmania. Even our senior corporate chief executives are really just branch managers of international chains which own us.
Our parliamentary politicians are essentially people we elect to manage and implement decisions made by those who run the world economy. Parliament is really just an overblown version of a local city or district council. Our Prime Minister is our outpost's mayor. That explains why we get so excited over smacking kids, or micro-chipping dogs, or drinking ages. Yet we leave all the important decisions to bureaucrats here and overseas.
The real election to get excited about is in the United States. That's where we are really governed and influenced. They have a housing problem and suddenly our economy takes a downward spiral. Because of their films and television shows, their culture is now ours. Even our gangs imitate theirs.
They are like the modern version of the "Holy Roman Empire" and the rest of the world is their colony, feeding the great monster. Their President is the Emperor of the world. Their armies crush all before them. The rest of the world economies take their orders from their business titans.
That's why their US presidential elections are far more interesting and important. Forget the Republicans, though. Their standard bearer, John McCain, won't win.
He's honourable enough, but the incumbent, George W. Bush, has damaged it so badly the Republican Party will go down big time.
A black man, raised by a solo mother on food stamps and with an Arabic name, will be ordained as the Democratic nomination for president in a few weeks', if not a few days', time. His primary opponent is also extraordinary: Hillary Clinton, who if she could beat him, would be the first woman in running the White House. Having a woman in the top political job isn't a big deal in New Zealand, but it's a new head space for them.
Despite her claims to be the working-class hero though, Clinton is the establishment candidate and comes from a privileged and wealthy background. Frankly, she is only viable because her husband was previously a two-term President and she has his surname.
When she was first lady she reverted to using Rodham to show her independence from her husband. But in this election it's back to Clinton. Hardly a trailblazer for feminism.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, is the real deal. A poor kid made good. Obama and his wife are proudly working class and were community organisers for the poor until he went into the state senate. They only paid off their student loans four years ago. Their only money comes from the proceeds of his books.
What is so motivating about his campaign is that unlike our politicians in New Zealand he has excited the youth, the poor and minorities, including obviously African Americans by the millions to get involved and vote. To be fair, Clinton has done that too, although on a smaller scale.
Funnily enough, more New Zealanders would probably know there was an election in the United States this year than there is in our own country. That's because most of us know that what comes out of Washington is more important than what happens in Wellington.
