Being Australian, Green Party co-leader Russel Norman has a bigger cross to bear than most of our politicians. It would probably rank him even lower than the rest of his parliamentary colleagues in the annual Readers Digest "most trusted" list, which had politicians near the bottom again this week.
Certainly there is none of the cuddly warmth of the late Rod Donald about Dr Norman. Nor has he earned affection in the way that Jeanette Fitzsimons did as our environmental conscience.
If anything he is becoming something of a lightning rod for disgruntled Labour voters who consider the Greens to be disproportionately powerful in the relationship with the bigger party.
That sentiment was expressed often in the most recent Fairfax Media-Ipsos poll taken just a few weeks after Dr Norman and Labour leader David Shearer shared a podium to unveil their contentious plan for electricity reforms.
But the perception says more about the two leaders than it does about the reality of the relationship between the parties.
Even the dwindling camp of Shearer loyalists in the Labour party – those who are also most likely to be deeply distrustful of the Greens – would probably not dispute that, of the two leaders, Dr Norman is the better politician.
It is not just that he is the more polished and composed of the two – on policy matters he is always sure-footed, where Mr Shearer is often hesitant or not quite across the detail.
Watkins is dead right here; Norman is every inch the politician, and why wouldn't he be? He cut his teeth on union politics and with the Australian Socialist Workers' Party, his academic qualification is in political science, and prior to leap-frogging his way into Parliament before the 2008 election (which enabled him to campaign on the taxpayer's coin) he worked for the Greens. His adult life has been all about politics.
David Shearer, like John Key doesn't fit the mould. Both men have actually had a life before politics, which we reckon is highly commendable. It gives them a much broader perspective on issues. Key demonstrates this ably, with an ability to see beyond the simple politics of given situations.
But being "every inch the politician" carries risks too; Watkins continues:
That made the landing all the harder when Dr Norman announced a climb-down on the Greens' controversial plan for quantitative easing.
While the Greens are claiming it was never a policy, only a discussion document, that is neither here nor there.
Dr Norman has been vociferously defending the proposal as though it were policy since the discussion document was launched last year.
Besides, the mileage National got out of it as a stick with which to beat both the Greens and by default Labour, means it may as well have been policy with a capital P.
Like the reaction to the Labour-Greens power plan, the Government's rhetoric on quantitative easing was overblown.
Quantitative easing does not appear to be particularly unorthodox, given that it has been widely adopted overseas to help drag economies out of recession.
But once the label "printing money" stuck the argument became impossible for the Greens to win.
There was plenty of pragmatism in Dr Norman's decision to ditch the policy. That might seem alien to a party that often views political pragmatism as a euphemism for selling out.
But the Greens are also a consensus-driven party and, given the strongly expressed lack of consensus between Labour and the Greens on the issue, the U-turn was inevitable.
The difference is these sorts of concessions are usually only made around the negotiating table once the votes are counted and the minor parties know their relative bargaining power.
Once again Watkins is dead right. If Russel Norman was as principled as he claims to be, he would have stuck by the policy to print money come hell or high water. But he hasn't; instead, he and his party have cut and run, to limit the political fallout. The principle has gone out the window, to be replaced by a pragmatic political response.
We freely admit to being highly cynical about the Greens. There are doubtless members of the Green caucus who sincerely believe in their "causes". One wouldn't expect them ever to compromise on a policy they hold dearly.
However we do not regard Russel Norman as one of those. He is a politician to the core, and this week's back-down if far more about politics than it is about anything else. We note too that the policy hasn't been abandoned altogether; it's been parked, and hidden from view. We certainly wouldn't discard it being taken out of storage again at some future date, but AFTER an election, not before.
The Greens' own polling will have shown them how unpopular this policy was; and let's face it, as Watkins says and despite the dancing on pin-heads we've seen this week "it may as well have been policy with a capital P". So rather than tough it out, they have cut and run. That decision may yet be more damaging to the Greens' aspirations than the policy of Quantitative Easing itself.
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