Over on Kiwiblog, DPF suggests that the Greens should vote against the ETS in order to keep it in play as an election issue. It's exactly the sort of logic you'd expect from a political consultant, focusing on the election race and winning votes. Meanwhile, the reasons they are bothering to contest elections in the first place - effecting change, implementing their polices - are completely ignored.
Actually, its worse than that. There are real questions around whether the ETS is good enough to support, and whether there's a credible chance of a better option in the near future, but none of this matters to DPF. He's not actually interested in what is at stake. All he's interested in is the game. This isn't a matter of juggling policy and electability, as seen so memorably in The Hollow Men. What DPF is suggesting is that a party should actively work against its own policy goals so that it can gain votes from the "lack of progress". And this applies regardless of the merits of the actual policy. If that's the quality of his political "logic", then he's been playing the game too long and needs to get out, and soon.
