The Disappointments of Politics

"I know that it's a wonderful world, but I can't feel it right now.
I thought that I was doing well, but I just want to cry now."
Wonderful World (a song), James Morrison

Over the years I've been involved in quite a few electoral losses, from minor political spats to local body and national level politics. The disappointment is often palpable, made worse so when the shape of an L on your forehead comes as something of a surprise.

The sense of anger and frustration can be heightened by an arrogant and triumphant opposition who wallow in rubbing their victory in your face. Sometimes you are aware of what you could have done differently, what might have been achieved if only you or your team had done x, y or z. On other occasions you are completely flummoxed by what went wrong, or you recognise that your side was just a casualty of bigger forces outside your control.

I have felt all of this most recently in mid-October, as a result of the right-wing swing that swept most of the nation's local bodies. I helped out with the local ward campaign for the centre-left in my area, and I really do not think that we could have done more. If we hadn't done all that we did then we would only have lost by a lot more. I don't know much about how City Vision campaigned in other wards, but the organisation as a whole was somewhat hamstrung by historical events that stubbornly defied my useless attempts at time travel.

However on the whole my reflection is that in some ways this is a good base for the centre-left to build from for 2010 in many local areas - in our case, we have a great group of people, we learnt a lot through this campaign about what works and what doesn't, and in the next bout we will not be (largely) new candidates linked to incumbents who are in turn shackled to an inglorious recent past foisted upon us by others on our ticket (and not even in our part of town). We will be connected to the community, even more so than now, and we will be challengers pointing out the injustices and the need for change to a public shocked by the nefarious acts of a right-wing council, and community board. Or so I hope.

For some time I put my game face on for others about October's result, but now enough time has passed that I can let my disappointments, and my worries, all hang out. The disappointments are largely for the individuals tipped out of office, or the new candidates who are unable to realise their ideas and potential. The worries tend to be more personal, and make me wish I had dreamt the whole sorry thing;

• I worry that the local body results are an oracle for the 2008 general election.


• I worry that opposition to the right-wing local regime will suck up my family's precious free time.


• I worry that the local versions of National and Act will have a very negative impact on my local community - on our library, our streets, our recreation centre, our parks, our transport system, our public assets, our utilities (especially water), our uniform annual general charge (as citizens of a poorer part of the city). In particular at the moment I am concerned that we won't get the traffic calming we desperately need on our road, which was going to happen any time about now. Not to mention the state of the pavements in this part of town, which I never used to notice before I had a wheeled contrivance to push about the place.

At least I am now over my initial reaction that we should simply up sticks and move towns. That would have been impractical and removed us from the fightback. The sweep across the country also indicates it would have been at best a temporary move. Even Red Heather lost the mayoralty in Palmerston North, and she was my little light in the darkness, until I found out she too was extinguished.

Disappointment, worry, despair, depression, anger, frustration, that odd feeling in the pit of your stomach that screams everything is wrong but it can't be changed right now; all of these are part of politics and I know that in my heart. But I wish I didn't have to experience them quite so often.