Baxter’s Leftie/Progressive Candidate Guide 2022 UPDATED V2.1.1 (Richard's update)

Previous versions were lacking in some honesty

If you don’t want an honest opinion of Mark’s choices then best not to proceed. I don’t hold back below as I’ve basically had it up to my front teeth with this campaign so far.

Mark Baxter puts out a “Leftie/Progressive Candidate Guide” every election. Somehow Aaron has made it to the top despite being a vain, nasty dismissive bore with very shitty politics. And Marie has made it to the top of the council suggestions despite being what looks like a communist* to me with the additional horror of an association with Identity Politics. Also almost as dismissive as Aaron of anybody who is actually on the left.

Anyway I have updated Mark’s list for him, as I have been around all these candidates for the last three weeks. To my mind the worst of them all are Aaron Hawkins and Sophie Barker. I really have no time for either of them. But the problem is that there arn’t actually any progressives or lefties at all (save me of course). I have though offered to help Mark to try and find the best of the rest of them as he’s not done very well at all below.

Mark starts here [ my comments follow in ( )s ]

Updated 23:50 21st September.

Brief Summary

If you don’t want to read the full guide here is a very summarised list of Leftie/progressive candidates - though I encourage you to use the full guide.

I will be ranking these candidates in this order:

DCC Mayor - [1] Aaron Hawkins (a really nasty piece of work. His politics are basically what Mussolini would have called corporatism in my view), [2] Sophie Barker (vain idiot, thinks that she’s a TERF - tis me - destroyer), [3] Mandy Mayhem-Bullock (wake up Mandy), [4] Jett Groshinski (likeable guy but actually has talked mostly cars & parking so far but I guess he must have seen my review because tonight’s speech addressed transport far better but his main campaign is still age i.e. vote for me because I’m 19), [5] Carmen Houlahan (populist, and noisy, right winger. Talks too much about herself).

Have heard that there’s another hit job on Lee tomorrow (22/9) instigated by one of the other candidates. Shall wait and see. But candidate meetings are a little like social media at the moment with trolls aplenty. It’s a very dirty campaign.

DCC Council - [1] Marie Laufiso (vote for me because I’m Pacifika is her campaign slogan, somewhat similar to Jett’s. Realistically all talk and no walk and communist in her politics with Identity Politics for additional nastiness. Consequently really horrible to have on council), [2] Jim O'Malley (vaccine shill, used to work for Pfizer, harassed the nurse Jennifer Scott in the Council zoom. His one redeeming feature is his opposition to 3 Waters. He is Sophie Barker’s partner), [3] Sophie Barker (as above) [4] David Benson-Pope (right wing establishment figure who put Aaron in, known for his bullying of schoolkids that got him fired as a Labour MP), [5] Steve Walker (not sure if he can be saved or not, not quite as bad as his mate Knights, but reference to Trumpist in Saturday’s ODT was offputting as was his rating of climate change emergency as 10 on scale to 10. Also on wrong side of 3 Waters. But he is a cyclist and if free of Labour could be quite good), [6] Mandy Mayhem-Bullock (as above), [7] Christine Garey (right wing Labour but deserves to be #2 or #3 on this list although no friend of women trying to keep men out of the Moana Pool changerooms), [8] Richard Knights (London boy and idiot, Walker’s mate, accuses most of Dunedin of being racists which sounds like he’s very dismissive of the place he now lives in. Claim’s he’s a duck. I think that he meant that he’s a …Wrong side of every issue including 3 Waters), [9] Chriss Hamilton (maybe ok, I havn’t taken enough notice of her so far), [10] Peter Barron (Pharmacy pusher, looks like a duck most times I see him due to his crazy mask, fancies himself as progressive but his positions seem more from guilt), [11] Robyn McLean (calls herself progressive I guess to convince herself of the same. Realistically a pronoun warrior but no worse than any of the above. Somewhat patronizing to the South Dunedin community and someone has suggested that to me that she was asked by Team Green to stand), [12] Joy Davis (Labour Party one redeeming feature might be that she doesn’t like Hawkins. Don’t we all.), [13] Jett Groshinski (as above), [14] Carmen Houlahan (as above), [15] Rachel Elder (religious maybe a little right of centre, gets kudos for cycling but it’s tourist orientated cycling not commuter. But heh choices not that great, so I recommend Rachel), [16] Marita Johnson (bit of a mix, I wrote her off for one answer but then she did mention homelessness.), [17] Randal Scott (like Robyn McLean thinks that he’s progressive but is not. Is a bit frantic. Priest. But also like Robyn should be higher up on this list of chancers. But neither are suitable for Council in my opinion)

END

My rating of Baxters “Ratings of Mayoral Candidates” - 1/10 - the 1 being probably forlorn hope that Mandy will wake up.

My rating of Baxters “Ratings of Council Candidates” - 2/10 - Is Steve Walker lost completely to the dark side? His alliance with fellow Londoner Knight is kind of amusing so even if he is, the 2 is for the bro love.

Of course I got dissed by Mark. I’m used to it from these pretend lefties. I did send him a reply to try and address issues. As well as the offer this morning to help him try and find some lefties (a very difficult task). But i think that it’s likely he’s fooled by the Identity politics rubbish and by the huge nasty vaccine companies. So I doubt there will be change. I could even go down for being so presumptious.

If so this line right here will be updated. Cairn won’t like it though.

The choices are very poor. I don’t think that good candidates, in the main, bother to stand anymore, the whole process being so toxic that it’s hardly worth their effort. Lee Vandervis and myself being the exceptions, as we don’t really care. And we’re both derided all over the internet for being things that we are not but we also understand that these are just projections. It’s a club and you, and we, are not in it.

* for those still fooled by this ideology it can be broken down to “shills for the corporates” and is therefore a pro dystopian ideology not a liberating one.

Follow up

Hi Richard,

On the BHN interview said "I don't believe in pathogenic viruses", and later said that research to prove they exist is "yet to be done".  

I feel my comment accurately represents what you said.

However, you seem to be clarifying here that what you meant and believe is that viruses may or may not exist and you are not convinced they exist (as opposed to outright not believing in them) - I'll update my comment to read something to the effect of "...is not convinced viruses exist and thinks illness caused by viruses might be vitamin deficiencies".

Thank you for your time,

Baxter

21 Sept 2022, 17:37 by richard@southernindependents.co.nz:

No not at all. I don't believe in viruses. What I was saying was that I was unsure of the vitamins claim.

21 Sept 2022, 17:35 by baxdesign@gmail.com:

And for good measure as he clearly is either a propagandist for the Greens (both ofhis top recommendations for council and Mayor are Greens) or an astro-turfer of the ‘left’. Or both.

BTW you're clearly just as much an astroturfer as any of the other orgs such as Gen Zero, 350 org etc etc etc

Cheers

Richard

#DCC #Dunedin #elections #seagerformayor @a_g_hawkins