Target National's vote

Let the policies speak for themselves. There will be policies both sides agree with & disagree with.

I joined TOP not because of a specific policy though I have always been keen on UBI. I joined because I think politics in New Zealand is embarrassingly small, completely lacking in vision and unbefitting to us as a country. I believe we are stuck in outdated ways of framing the issues. More than anything I think we need to change the way issues are talked about and the timeframes in which results are viewed, and discuss alternatives that are more than tweaks. Do that and National’s ‘everything is okay, go back to sleep’ approach is going to look pretty unappealing. I disagree with targeting specific voter segments – apart from Ross’s suggestion of non-voters – it seems to me the left tried to do that by moving to the centre rather than by bringing people to the left and seems to have lost its way almost everywhere, probably as a consequence.

Agree with the comments. Look at Finland and evidence based and experimental governance.

I like Tim’s comment, that picking a side is not what TOP is about. However, I’ve been surprised in recent days when talking with people about TOP: all have assumed that it will take votes primarily from the left. They make this assumption because they believe Gareth has a left-leaning bias. So I think that’s there’s a disconnect between what the party wants to be, and what people think it wants to be. That may result in lost votes – e.g. right-leaning voters might not seriously consider TOP if they see it as a party of the left. There needs to be a strong effort to sell TOP for what it is: a party not of the left, but of the evidence.

how about targeting the 30% who don’t vote it’s hard because they don’t vote but life’s hard. there are about 800000 non voters

Hi Tim, thanks for your comment. As mentioned, I’ve voted all over the spectrum – Each time, desperately seeking a party with what feel like the right policies. That’s why I joined TOP. I’m not particularly vested anywhere. Probably could have worded my point differently but I was more pointing to the fact the party needs to think about positioning to have impact. My understanding is this party wants to wield influence. Given National + Act + NZ first + Peter Dunne look, generally like having fairly safe majority, TOP needs to take votes from this Bloc in order to have a chance of being able to influence both sides of the political spectrum. I’m all for good policy as the central principle, but given you’ll inevitably need to prioritize messaging (or even policy) why not do so in a way that makes political sense (perhaps there are better strategies??). 5% needs to come from somewhere.

You seem to be picking a side which is not what this party is about. Choose policies because they’re right for this country & it’s people. Even if they don’t sit well in the short term. Take the long term view