Yesterday we were treated to a small blessing: Leo Molloy quitting the Auckland mayoralty race after a dreadful poll that saw him slump to third place behind Efeso Collins and Wayne Brown. Now, if only someone would take Viv Beck aside and tell her to quit as well.
Leading Auckland mayoral candidate Leo Molloy has confirmed he is dropping out of the race.
“It’s the right thing to do for the city,” he said in a surprise statement on Friday.
Molloy said the result of a new poll which he received last night, showed he had slipped to third place behind Wayne Brown.
“I was mortified,” Molloy told media on Friday afternoon, and that began the internal discussion that he should withdraw before midday, after which time his name would be on the ballot paper.
Stuff
It wasn’t really surprising that Molloy quit. Most of his campaign team had quit in the past few weeks or quietly walked away mouthing platitudes. But he is correct, it was the right thing to do. Otherwise his name would have been on the ballot paper and he would have shared the blame, alongside other putative centre-right candidates, in making sure Auckland is inflicted with yet another Labour donkey for mayor.
There has been quite a concerted effort on the centre-right to get the three egos to pull their heads in and pull out in favour of the highest polling candidate. That is Wayne Brown right now.
There are two types of people who stand for council, and you need to craft your campaign around the personality type. There are those who need slowing down, which is easier to do than the second type of candidate, who needs speeding up. It is much easier to slow someone down than to speed someone up.
Wayne Brown is one that needs slowing down. He has a proven track record in local government and health bureaucracies and has a reputation for cracking skulls on intransigent civil servants. But he is prone to rash action, hence the need to slow him down.
Viv Beck is theoretically the second type, but she is a long way away from even being in a position to speed up. One wag suggested she needed to wake up first before even trying to speed up. About the only chance she would have of winning would be if the National Party broke the habit of a lifetime and actually endorsed a candidate.
Some senior people inside the National Party or C&R should now quietly pay a visit to Viv Beck and get her to quit too. She stupidly will be on the ballot paper and will attract some votes, but disaster can still be averted. I’m not sure Viv Beck wants to go down in history as the person most responsible for delivering a Labour mayor from South Auckland.
There comes a time in a campaign where candidates have to shit or get off the pot. Viv Beck hasn’t even taken her seat on the pot. She should just quit now.
Kudos to Leo Molloy, he knew he couldn’t win, and so quit at exactly the right time.
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