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  • New Zealand Listener

    Pork chop politics

    Feb 16, 2020 4 minutes
    JANE CLIFTON

    Superstitions and supposed curses abound in politics, but often have sound bases in truth. The curse of being called “a future prime minister” dooms any new candidate to extra-early scepticism and jealousy from which it’s difficult to recover – as Jim Anderton, Lianne Dalziel and David Kirk found, and Christopher Luxon is finding.

    The Dancing with the Stars hoodoo claimed Rodney Hide, Michael Laws and Marama Fox – though any politico who does the show must already be at political panic stations or in perilous ego overspill. (David Seymour only survives because the fates deem endless TV replays of his twerking a fitter punishment.)

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