Some members of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy believe that Noelle McCarthy is not to be trusted as she is far too left wing.
We have never met Noelle McCarthy beyond one or two chats over the airwaves. The only things we really know about her are that she like shoes (a lot!), and men really like her radio shows (women do not). She also managed to get Don Brash to confess to meeting with the Exclusive Brethren, thus causing National to lose the last election. This is why she is probably regarded to be a communist by some on the right.
According to her column today in the NZ Herald she is currently unable to vote and she is sick of the political campaign before it has even begun. But that doesn't stop her sticking the knife in:
I am sick of politics. New Zealand politics. So utterly totally sick of it. Winston should straighten up and fly right, and stop drawing fatuous comparisons between the privileges committee and a well-reviled kleptocracy. He won't.
Helen should cut him loose and wear it. But she won't.
We agree with both these sentiments. Noelle then gets even meaner. She starts extolling the virtues of Green co-leader Russell Norman.
There are little lights in the gloom of course. Mere swamp gas, probably, but Russel Norman is looking good. Call me old fashioned, but there's something satisfying about a politician who actually answers a question.
Doesn't prevaricate, doesn't bluster, and doesn't fall back on the tried and tested strategy of blaming the other crowd when things get sticky.
Last Sunday I was part of the panel who got to interrogate Norman on Bill Ralston's Campaign 08 show on Prime.
Viewers would have seen a man who didn't have all the answers, or none that we wanted at least, but who tried, nevertheless, to be as frank and honest and fluent as possible in his responses. He couldn't have known, of course, that I'd come away unfulfilled.
My current disenfranchisement precludes any sort of meaningful engagement with an elected representative. I was always going to be disappointed, but that's my problem, not Russel's.
As disappointments go, he was one of the more effervescent. There was a moment when I actually admired him, I swear. It helps that he's tall and rangy and has a way with a pinstripe, of course.
Until he came into the boardroom afterwards and started talking the most awful nonsense about fairy terns in Whangarei that is.
Why is this cruel? Because Noelle is sufficiently well plugged in to know that all the Labour polling is showing that Russel Norman is a big turn off. He is a disaster as far as the electorate is concerned. Everytime he appears on air or TV support for the Greens falls. Labour is so worried about this that they have communicated their data to Jeanette Fitzsimons.
In her own subtle way we think Noelle is shaping up to be OK.
