Short Term Memory Loss & Rumour Mills

National's claim that it is not engaging in a dirty campaign this election rang hollow over the weekend when, while on the campaign trail, a canvasser was informed by a died-in-the wool National supporter that the only way Labour won the 2005 election was because in Ross Robertson's Manukau East Electorate a secret cabal from the local Labour organisation, aided by the then Mayor who provided a secret list of Manukau residents who were on work schemes or benefits, visited all these people and threatened them with loss of benefits or places on work schemes unless they went to the booths and voted Labour.
When pressed by the canvasser to name the members of the inner cabinet of the Manukau Labour Party the National Party supporter at first claimed the names were common knowledge among the business community and the National Party but he wouldn't name the people himself but it was enough to prove that Labour used dirty campaigning techniques to win elections.
To this observer such rumour milling is proof enough of a demonstration campaign hypocrisy being practised by the National Party as the rumour has as much credibility as the claim that the National Party has insisted that John Key undergo an urgent medical for Alzhiemers as his requent demonstrations of short term memory loss when pressed to recall either ownership of TransRail shares, National Party policies, or meetings with visiting millionaires was of concern to their spinmeisters - Crosby-Textor.
One would argue that if a political party was to run a clean campaign it would not be a party to the spreading of such rumours but perhaps it is because the National Party has no appreciation of satire that their response to its use is to promote the dubious and obviously dirty campaign rumour the canvasser was regaled with as he door knocked last weekend.