I’m certainly not saying that leadership never has an effect. In situations like Howard v Latham, or Keating v Hewson I imagine it would have a larger effect. In fact I would think that Howard v Latham would be about as extreme as the effect could get.

However in the comparison of Howard v Beazley with Howard v Rudd, I don’t think the difference between these two scenarios is enormous. Just a personal opinion.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/number-and-number-or-labors-lost-loves/2006/12/17/1166290412029.html

I cannot, for the life of me, see how people can use those observations to be sentimental about Beazley’s passing.

Kimbo had one of the worst sound-bites in the game (admittedly for a different reason than Kev).

His points of “clearly articulated difference” with Howard were few, and were also balanced by minimising difference in other areas – precisely the strategy that Mark is criticising.

And frankly, while those points of difference may have extended beyond IR, insofar as they did they were having zero impact.

FWIW I still think that the ALP will make solid grounds in the next election under Rudd, and I believe they would have made solid ground under Beazley. As armchair analysts I think their is a great temptation to place far too much importance in these events as being definitive in themselves. The variation in results between what each leader could have achieve off their own bat will almost certainly be swamped by the variation produced by external events.

So much for product differentiation, Rudd style. Kim Beazley could quite rightly say that Labor had sharpened its differences with the government this term, and this was going to make the next election something quite rare these days in Australian politics – a genuine contest of ideologies and ideas.

Product differentiation on the Culture War is an over-rated virtue. Politics is not an epicurean activity, variety is not the spice of life where political culture is concerned.

It is not good to have dramatic “bi-polar cleavages” [!] between the parties on major issues of social policy. This would imply incipient culture war. Iraq is a good example of elections where parties offer “a genuine contest of ideologies and ideas” on political culture. I dont see many Australian takers for this kind of excitement.

The Australian major party convergence on cultural issues should be applauded not lamented. It demonstrates the general health of the Australian polity since it shows that the “ideological preference curve” for Australian political culture is unipolar and moving towards a fairly narrow base. This indicates that major parties are aligning to capture the boring and bland median voter. A sign of a well-settled polity showing normal integration and only mild deviancy.

Mark says:

But Rudd and various newly anointed and reshuffled shadows have spent the week blurring the differences. Passive welfare be damned, “symbolic reconciliationâ€? is out, there’s no difference between private and public schools, there’ll be “careful consultationâ€? with America on Iraq, political correctness is out and the 3Rs back in.

This kind of moderate social conservatism coming from the incoming leader of the major Left wing party is bound annoy social constructivists like Mark. He wants to go on with the Culture War and is still keen to indulge in little social “experiments in living”. Been there and done that to death.

The Wets will be forever playing catch-up in the Culture War, given their fundamentally unscientific philosophy of culture. They never stop making “we wuz robbed” whines over the scoreboard whilst denying that this reflects the state of play. Friendly advice: quit while you are behind.

If you want to beat Howard you should concentrate on the Class War. The Left cant seem to score many goals on the War on Terror and is on the losing side in the Culture War.

the british heritage and australia’s particular colonial experience has left the nation with a deep-rooted belief that politics can only be practiced by politicians.

politicians say that, academics say that, media say that, by the time you’re old enough for an adult library card- you are brainwashed. doublethink and newspeak are real and practiced effectively in australia.

parliamentary rule is not democracy! aristotle would have called it oligarchy, superficially, and plutocracy fundamentally.

until you understand this, you can make no progress. until you understand this, your role in politics is that of ‘onlooker’, of no more significance than a fan of a footy club. look back at the comments, indeed, the lead essay- all are essentially commentary on the form and prospects of the league leading clubs.

imagine for a moment that australians had an accessible and effective power of citizen initiated referendum. do you think oz would be a better place? if you do, do something to bring it about. email kevin rudd to say: “i’ll vote labor when/if labor promises to establish cir.”

if enough people do, it will happen. if only you do, at least for a moment you are a citizen, not a cow.

Just sayin…