Key’s Conservative maths problem
If Craig-voters > (2 x Craig-wary-centrists), Key should make room. If not, he shouldn’t.
“Why would I want to think about an inequality? Try Cunliffe.”
Political tactics are generally about either mobilisation or persuasion. Mobilisation is about converting some voters’ already existing preferences into seats for your party or coalition, while persuasion is about changing people’s minds.
The deal John Key is thinking about with the Conservatives is really a mobilisation move, as it isn’t designed to change anyone’s vote choice. But instead of classic mobilisation, getting previous non-voters into the booth, the aim is to mobilise previously wasted right-leaning votes by getting them reflected in the Parliament.
The issue with many mobilisation campaigns is that they are only half as effective as persuasion campaigns, especially those targeted at centrist swing voters. Persuading one swing voter does the same good as mobilising two other voters.1
This is what is causing Key and his strategists such problems: unintended consequences. The act of cuddling up to Colin Craig will also likely cause a year-long string of the damaging stories we’ve seen in the last ten days. Palin, chemtrails, creationism, and undoubtedly more to come. It will cause more of the right-on-right fighting we saw John Banks starting yesterday. And Key will be stuck discussing all of it on TV, defending Colin Craig or trying to “aw, shucks” his way out of it.
If all these stories cause only a few centrists to decamp from the right and return to the left, then any gains Key makes through mobilising the Conservatives’ votes get wiped out in a hurry.
Here’s the equation for Key: If the Conservatives’ final vote total is more than double the number of swing voters he would lose by lurching to the Conservative right, then he should give Colin Craig a seat. On the other hand, if the Conservative-wary-swingers number more than half the Conservatives’ vote, the deal is counterproductive.
With around 30% of New Zealanders rating themselves as perfectly centrist and the Conservatives only polling 1.5%, I would say the deal likely isn’t worth it.
But without this deal, what other path to 50%+1 does National have?