Personally I think that your diagram can be re-aligned.
First National and Labour should over-lap a bit, the right of labour should fit in with the just left of central national. United Future should be much more centralist than you have them, probably being completly over-lapped by the right of labour and the left of national. It is the reason they do not get that many votes, because the people who would can and do vote for either National or Labour. They are in fact much more centralist than NZF anyway. Also the Democrats should be moved further right, mostly because you are missing the Greens from the US spectrum (they are the 3rd biggist party there too.) You could also show the left of the republicans leaving the party in their droves because of the idiotic direction the party is going, mostly under the direction of morons like those extreme right wingers on this board.
I think that the republician party needs to re-align itself, much like the national party has done, to sit further to the left. The problem at the moment all around the world is that the extremists are holding nations to ransom, and for no good reason. Be it left wing, right wing, religious, whatever, the extremists are yelling the loudest and getting the attention, mostly by virtue of being extreme. This has distorted politics and dragged parties too far away from the centre in an attempt to apease these extreme elements who make the most noise. Luckily what this tends to bring about is a massive move in voters, as the party ignores their concerns. This happened to National here throughout most of their time in opposition, shown most clearly by Don Brash. Sure he managed to get a better result than english, but he also got a better result for labour as everyone got out to ensure that divisive and extremist action did not prosper. The National party learned from this with Key, who made sure he was seen to be much more central, and is continuing to do that with his deals with the Maori, United and Green parties. (Though his agreement with the greens is less solid than the other two.) He even went as far as to make sure everyone knew that if Roger Douglas got back in he would not be on the treasury benches. This was a calculated move, knowing that even if ACT got pissed off there was nothing they could do about it, whihc ensured people were not scared off by extreme budgets like what ACT propose. The republicians are currently in a position like National has been in, and they will not recover in a meaningful way until the party re-aligns itself more towards the views of the american population, despite what some people here may think. The main problem maybe that the democrats have also pressed to far into the left field of politics and will therefore not be able to adequately pick up the republicans dropped ball. If they have ben moved too far left then the extremist republicans could keep their party anchored in the extreme right, hoping for a democrat slip-up which will swing voters back to the right, even if it is further right than they are happy with. However if this keeps up for too long then more centralist party will spring up (i understand their is a reivival of the modern whig party with this objective in mind.) This could spell the end for one of the parties, depending on where this centralist party picks up most of its voters, and with a democrat in power atm that would be off the more right of centre voters, leaving the republicans out of pocket.
Really political parties need to treat elections like a stock market and be ready to adjust as oppinions change over the course of a decade or so. For sure stay in a position for a resonable time, but be ready to see where the shifts come, and always, always ignore the extreme factions of your party, if need be you can let them break away and form their own party, I mean look at how New Labour did for Jim Anderton, for awhile he was seperate from labour, but now he may as well be a labour seat, he doesn't even get enough party votes to bring in extra people anymore, and that was a split because he thought Labour was too far right at the time, a time when ppublic oppinion was more suited to right wing politics.
For your benifit I willl try put a diagram of political parties as I see them...
|----------left--------------------centre--------------------right----------|
|-----------Labour------------| |---Act---|
|-----Maori-----| |------------National-------------|
|----Greens----| |---United Future---|
|---| |-----NZF-----|
Progressives
|---US Greens---| |~~~~~~~Republican----------|
and other left wing |----------Democrat----------| |----|
US parties other right wing US parties
I think the ~~~ part of the republicans are the ones fleeing the party for the democrats, the centre right voters who are annoyed at how the republician party is drifting further right. The time for correction iss upon us and hopefully the Republicians realise this.
I personally lean towards labour (the democrats) mostly because they don't sound like dicks when they speak and their policies are generally geared in the right direction. The nats (and republicans) generally manage to say one or two things that makes me not want to vote for them at all, esp when the things I like about them happen to over lap in the Labou idealogy. That said I look at ACT and agree with many of their principles except a few, and its those few that I completly disregard them on, and this is mostly around the ill-dounded notion that the government in their view should be around to punish people not help them, whilst I am of the opposing and opposite view.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but i am Jesus"
"Nothing is worse than a fully prepared fool"
