"And I think the rolling polls put more pressure on them to sustain their beliefs and to improve their delivery of the policy and their delivery of the ideas so that they can garner support for whatever principle they're articulating"
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Bolger’s sentence is doing the statesman’s favorite trick: recasting a potentially corrosive force - constant polling - as a disciplinarian for democracy. “Rolling polls” are usually accused of shrinking politics into a mood ring, but he flips the charge. The pressure, he implies, is productive: it forces politicians to “sustain their beliefs” rather than freewheel, and to “improve their delivery” so the public can actually buy what they’re selling.
The phrasing matters. He repeats “delivery” twice, almost admitting that modern politics lives or dies less on policy than on presentation. That repetition is a quiet concession to the media age: ideas don’t travel by merit alone; they need packaging, cadence, and a coherent storyline. Yet he pairs that with “principle,” anchoring the performance talk in moral seriousness. The subtext is a defense against cynicism: yes, politics is partly theatre, but the theatre can be in service of something steadier than the news cycle.
Contextually, this is the worldview of a late-20th-century leader who watched parties move from mass membership and thick ideological identities into professionalized, message-tested campaigns. Bolger isn’t celebrating polls as a substitute for conviction; he’s sketching an accountability mechanism when traditional forms of party discipline weaken. Still, the line carries a tell: “garner support” is the end point, not persuasion or deliberation. The public becomes an audience to win, and principle becomes something “articulated” for uptake. It’s pragmatic, slightly wary, and unmistakably of an era when democracy started sounding like marketing - and leaders had to argue that it could still be governance.
The phrasing matters. He repeats “delivery” twice, almost admitting that modern politics lives or dies less on policy than on presentation. That repetition is a quiet concession to the media age: ideas don’t travel by merit alone; they need packaging, cadence, and a coherent storyline. Yet he pairs that with “principle,” anchoring the performance talk in moral seriousness. The subtext is a defense against cynicism: yes, politics is partly theatre, but the theatre can be in service of something steadier than the news cycle.
Contextually, this is the worldview of a late-20th-century leader who watched parties move from mass membership and thick ideological identities into professionalized, message-tested campaigns. Bolger isn’t celebrating polls as a substitute for conviction; he’s sketching an accountability mechanism when traditional forms of party discipline weaken. Still, the line carries a tell: “garner support” is the end point, not persuasion or deliberation. The public becomes an audience to win, and principle becomes something “articulated” for uptake. It’s pragmatic, slightly wary, and unmistakably of an era when democracy started sounding like marketing - and leaders had to argue that it could still be governance.
Quote Details
| Topic | Vision & Strategy |
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