By Jeremy Elwood

It’s official, we head to the voting booths again on November 26.

Possibly utilizing the start of FebFast, (the month-long abstinence campaign which is running right through February) to avoid making a Muldoon-like error in announcing the date after one or nine too many Chardonnays, Prime Minister John Key has shown his hand, and set the date for the general election.

He is right in saying that it clears things up, rather than going for the more traditional 5-6 week rush that opposition parties can expect.

After all, it’s still more than 10 months off, surely enough time for most political parties to get their act together, apart from ACT, obviously.

And maybe the Maori party, but they’ve survived Hurricane Hone before; I have a feeling they will again.

Phil Goff has pretty much started his campaign already, the Greens have fresh faces waiting in the wings to replace the (at least in terms of his quotability) irreplaceable Keith Locke, and who knows what Winston Peters is up to; so it’s business as usual there.

The timing is still interesting, though.

That late in November, less than a month out from Christmas, when thoughts have already turned to office parties and credit card bills, may not be the time many of us want to think about whose boxes we’re ticking. (It also happens to be the date that Casablanca had its world premiere, Tina Turner’s birthday, and the day Hulk Hogan retired from Pro Wrestling, but I doubt that’ll distract us too much.)

According to the PM, the timing gives us five weeks to get over the hangover from us winning the World Cup, or more likely on past form, six weeks to get over the fallout from us getting knocked out in the quarter-finals.

He’s been quoted as saying that he doesn’t want politics distracting us during the big event, but surely even mentioning them in the same sentence is doing exactly that?

Politics and sport go hand-in-hand, regardless of what generations of politicians dating back at least as far as Apartheid have tried to claim, and banking on the goodwill of a victorious bunch of Rugby fans going into a general election is a gamble.

Announcing the election with the offer, or threat, depending on your point of view, of going into a second term with a perceived mandate to sell off State Owned Assets fresh in our minds is an even bigger one.

It is worth noting that even before campaigning starts, Key has (again, bravely or foolishly, your call) already made us two promises that we can look forward to holding him to.

Yesterday he ruled out including NZ First in any National-led Coalition, and just before Christmas he said that if he loses, he’ll step down from politics.

Either way, we now know we only have to wait until late November to see if he keeps one or the other.