The eagle has daua

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I think it’s bad and sad.

These were the words Jonas Gahr Støre used about the voters’ verdict on his party in the polls a year and a half ago. At the time, the Labor Party had an average of just over 21 percent, according to the website Poll of polls.

“Trygve told me,” he added in the same interview with TV 2, “that if you and I walk the streets, and we both fall, then you are clumsy and I am popular.”

Well, after eight months in government together, both Jonas and Trygve have gone head to head, and both appear to be somewhat clumsy.

The smoke is about to subside after the first parliamentary session with the Støre government at the helm. In June, the Labor Party incurred an average of… just over 21 percent.

Steady course there, that is. Or “steady management in relation to the course”, as Støre might have said.

The tears have dried up and the bad polls have taken hold. The speeches of the numbers dare Støre hardly call “bad and sad” anymore. At the same time, it would mean a kind of promise from him that they would climb to old heights again, when the Labor Party was referred to as the eagle in Norwegian politics that hovered high above everyone else.

No, now are new times. The eagle has daua.

However, the Labor Party does not appear to be a bird rising from the ashes. They rather suffer from stiffness of death – stiffness of death.

The Center Party, for its part, has fallen from opinion polls by well over 20 per cent to seeing the five in some polls. Although Vedum has enough to contend with himself, and should not be blamed for all the misery the Labor Party currently has, he fired the final shot at the eagle. Now it comes in full recoil.

When politicians and political parties struggle, there are often three reasons for this:

1. They do not solve the problems they promised to do something about
2. Other parties present better solutions to the problems
3. The problems have changed since the last election

The government decline is a toxic cocktail of all three.

Vedum raised the expectations ceiling in the year before the Storting election. He was eventually caught in a kind of childish euphoria of seeing the very good polls for the Center Party. Now there were no limits to how much they could grow.

At the same time, Støre benefited from a political partner who created room for an alternative to the Solberg government.

But even though promises of golden times for “ordinary people” were possible in the election campaign, it turns out to be almost impossible to implement now.

Through the power crisis, both the parties on the left and the right are growing for the government. Both Rødt and SV look at the 10s in the polls and are increasingly picking on a fragile government. The right climbs back up to the level they were at before Erna Solberg ate sushi with too many guests in Geilo.

Not least, reality struck brutally. The war in Ukraine and its handling meant that many of the government’s election promises were put on hold. Instead of the government fulfilling its promises, SV has been able to fix the steak in negotiations in the Storting. Thus, it is clear to everyone who has landed the victories.

The Labor Party’s stiffness of death means that it is struggling to cope with these changes. It seems a long time since the Labor Party’s leadership could open the window to Youngstorget to know what people meant, as former party secretary Haakon Lie apparently had the ability to do.

Instead, the Labor Party seems locked in one worldview where the Center Party is the most important bellworm and competitor in Norwegian politics.

In the midst of all the problems they face, Støre Senterpartiet lets the territory mark as much as they want. They are allowed to roam free by fulfilling their election promises, completely detached from political reality.

The government’s unpopularity means that they balance on a knife edge and have little room for error. When the case of the possible forced dissolution of Kristiansand explodes in the face of Støre, it is as much a sign that the government is “easy to take” as that the case is poorly handled. A very popular government had managed to ride out this storm earlier.

It is almost ironic that the Labor Party has continued to fall on the polls at the same time as Støre has got rid of what many thought was his biggest problem, namely the stamp as fog prince. Or his penchant for high-mindedness and nuanced answers, as it might as well be called. There was a solid dose of Conservative spin involved in that label, but Støre did not make it difficult for them. It settled down quickly.

When the Center Party began to race like a rocket upwards in the polls and drew more and more voters from the Labor Party, Støre had to make a choice. He sharpened the party more clearly as an interest party for some groups of voters and gradually reminded more of the Labor Party from the 70s and 80s than they did during Jens Stoltenberg’s time as party leader and prime minister.

It is a clearer Støre we see as prime minister than the party leader he was two years ago. But he is still not comfortable in the role. Støre seems to have chosen a direction he does not believe in, and which he at least does not have credibility in.

The urban, international Støre was suddenly to become party leader for the old social democracy and head of government for a reversible and retrospective government. It’s a ham change that has not worked. The party has almost only fallen under his leadership.

This is how Støre and Vedum become problems for the government, and for their parties. Political strategists can not only be measured by how high they are at the top. If you crash shortly afterwards, it is not as impressive.

PS: Sondre Hansmark has been elected as the third deputy to the Storting for the Liberal Party. He is now employed as a commentator in Dagbladet, resigned from the party and will in that case meet as an independent representative.

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