It’s interesting to see something I was pointing out back in April now picked up by “political insiders” like Barrie Cassidy. Antony Green was also there before them, and I’m surprised that this hasn’t been part of the repertoire of MSM political analysis for a long time – but I guess it conflicts with their preferred narratives:
I am strongly of the view that the current margins in many seats is inflated. All the 2001 marginals swung heavily against Labor in 2004. Was the 2004 swing on those seats the sign of a re-alignment, or just a reaction to the 2004 campaign? If it was just a reaction based on Latham and interest rates, then there are a lot more seats in play then just the current 16 most marginal everyone keeps looking at.
The government must know it too. Otherwise, there’d be no point in the Queensland front in The War on the States as the seats the Coalition holds within a range of 5% (what you’d normally consider marginal) are in Brisbane, and not affected by local council boundary changes. Nor would there be much mileage in using the same tactics of smear and innuendo used against Latham on Rudd.
There was good reason for believing Latham to be a risky choice for the top job. But this was exacerbated by rumour mongering and trashing the usual reporting conventions about what’s public and what’s private – not just the stories of the mythical bucks’ night video but also the “revelations” about his first marriage and the insinuation that he was violent. His temper, aggression and the famous handshake all reinforced that sort of smear, but up until now the usual suspects have seemed frustrated that Rudd wasn’t able to be painted after this fashion. There must be a belief that this sort of attempt to create perceptions about his private behaviour will frighten the same suburban voters – including a lot of women – who turned away from Latham.
Elsewhere: More from Simon Jackman.
Indeed there was. But it is also true that, for a time before that election, Latham’s personal and party ratings were high enough for him to be seriously considered a threat to Howard. Smart-alec retrospectives obscure this, and are usually an exercise in excusing one’s own misplaced confidence at the time.
The most uncharitable view of Rudd is that he has merely returned Labor to that level, the magical bedtime-stories level of three-and-a-bit years ago, where people are willing to consider someone other than the incumbent and are seriously testing whether the challenger has what it takes. Rudd seems to have a more solid policy-development background than Latham’s occasional market-tested one-liner, and at least he didn’t punch any cabbies in Noo Yawk.
Mark – yes it’s interesting that this hasn’t been part of the usual political narrative. I would have thought that most close observers would have noted the unusual big swings against Labor in some seats – e.g. Petrie. The question as you ask is whether that was a realignment or whether there was some “Latham” factor which no longer exists. If the latter is true, the 2001 results may be a better indication of the margins, in which case seats such as Petrie and Longman are eminently winnable by Labor.
It’s a big ask even for the Liberal push pollers to turn Rudd into Latham.
The reason that the fictitious smears against Latham (the bucks night, the first marriage) gained traction is that they fitted in to his persona which he encouraged and reinforced with his own behaviour.
Latham boasted that was a great hater, vigorously defended his role in the taxi dricer affair (“he stole my property”), used vulgar language (“conga line of suckholes”) and put the bone crusher handshake on Howard. Latham radiated outer suburban boofy testosterone.
Rudd is a nerd who had one naughty night out. No one in the right mind would think Rudd is another Latham. Rudd is courteous and respectful, the anti-Latham. Rudd might be a lot of things, but another Latham isn’t one of them.
During the 1996 US Presidential election campaign, Bob Dole tried to paint Bill Clinton as a radical tax and spend liberal (in the US sense). It didn’t work, because it was so unbelievable. As Clinton said at the time, “that dog won’t hunt”.
“There must be a belief that this sort of attempt to create perceptions about his private behaviour will frighten the same suburban voters – including a lot of women – who turned away from Latham.”
There might be an attempt, but it won’t work.
Latham was the whole package, a man who celebrated a version of working-class masculinity that completely excluded women and believed in the biff to solve problems.
Going to a strip joint is probably a rites of passage for most men, middle-class, working-class and whatever.
I don’t think women will be upset or if they are it will be in that “naughty boy, Kevvy, way”.
Agreed, Spiros, and I make that point in the post. But they’re desperate. And this is tied into the Crosby/Textor method of inspiring people to think “but what if?”…
Unfortunately for Crosby/Textor and co the big what ifs of workchoices and rising Interest rates out do any beatup what ifs from the Press.
When the election is called workchoice and Interest Rate Rise what ifs will dominate thinking as they have since workchoices was introduced to Parliament in November 2005 and the Liberal primary vote started to collapse.
The strip club smear is straight out of the Karl Rove playbook. Whereas Crosby/Textor have generally* worked on attacking the perceived weaknesses (the economy, security) of their opponent, here they are going after Rudd’s strengths. Sully Rudd in the public eye to take it off the very sullied image of Howard.
It works just like trying to convince the public that a War Hero isn’t when your own man was a draft dodger.
But then there are bigger issues at play this time that the libs can’t neutralise as easily..
*There are exceptions
Its no accident the smear was exactly timed with Howard’s announcement on sexualised imagery in the press, and shortly after his anti-porn filter software announcement.
Its a reinforcement strategy – straight out of the republican playbook.
Which is, it must be said, its problem. It doesn’t wash well here. Note that Dolly “not dignifying with a response” is equivalent to not denying it.
This has occurred to me too. There are two episodes that come to mind. The first is the “swift-boating” of John Kerry. Kerry was a swift-boat captain in Vietnam, which made him a true American hero. The Republicans found it necessary to lie about Kerry’s actions in Vietnam to blunt his hero status. In Rudd’s case, the lie being told was that Rudd was kicked out of the strip club. However it is true that Rudd did attend the strip club, and his status as “upright Christian” has been dented somewhat, although I seriously doubt this will have any effect on the polls.
The second episode that comes to mind is the outing of Valerie Plame, the WMD expert in the CIA. Rove was almost definitely behind that. The analogies between this case and the attack on Rudd are even closer. Rove, Libby and Cheney (and possibly Bush himself) contacted Bob Novak, a sympathetic journalist, and leaked Plame’s identity as a CIA agent to him. In our case, Downer and the Foreign Affairs Dept. leaked the information to a sympathetic journalist Glenn Milne. Like Novak, Milne refuses to divulge the source of his information, though every other journalist in Australia “knows” it is Downer. Like Rove, Downer is refusing to testify to his part in the actions, and like Bush, Howard is refusing to get involved, all the while trying to appear innocent of the whole affair.
The swift-boating of John Kerry is thought to have been the most successful ploy the Republicans used in his defeat in 2004, but there were other factors as well. I remember there was a prominent Catholic bishop who came forward and declared that it would be a “sin” to vote for Kerry. I’m just wondering if Australia is going to see a repetition of that type of religious interference. Will George Pell also come forward and declare that voting for Kevin Rudd will be a sin?
silkworm – it is Kerry who lied about his service in Vietnam. Not the Swiftboat veterans who outed him as a liar. And the Catholic issue around Kerry was due to his position on abortion, so it isn’t suprising for the Catholics to take that view. As for the Plame affair, the conviction was for misleading a grand jury. It has never been proven that Plame was an under-cover CIA agent covered by the non-disclosure laws at the time the information was made public. Nobody was charged with or found guilty of outing Plame. The fact that she recommended her husband for the trip is the big issue on that one.
You need to spend a bit of time away from the left when researching the full facts of an issue.
And razor you need to spend a bit of time away from the right – most of these Republican talking points are plain bullsh*t.
Razor, you still believe that Plame was not verified as an undercover agent , when the head of the CIA stated she was. Oh boy! Nobody had been charged with the outing because of Scooters perjury /obstruction. Good grief, why is this so hard for some to follow.
Sorry. back on topic. It seems to me that the govt is trying anything/everything at present.
Phillip Coorey, in the SMH, sets out the situation into which Rudd found himself.
Glenn Milne, and his news editor, have given up on journalism, but at least they can claim to be real insiders, which is a higher calling.
I suspect the anti-Latham shift in voting was largely a female vote, although not perhaps exclusively so.
My facination will be see how low Howard will go. We can put the children overboard as one level and go from there. Are there any takers?
The Libs have presumably not been dumb enough to fire off all their ammunition now with nothing left for the remaining months before the election. We need to see these events as part of a strategy, not as individual incidents that can be analysed in isolation.
If you’ve been following Brian’s graphs at Ozpolitics there’s a steady trend back towards Howard. Not enough to give him majority TPP by election day but within striking distance. Expect an endless series of incidents all intended to create ‘Rudd in trouble again’ stories and keep Labor on the defensive. The effect doesn’t come from any one incident, it comes from the swelling impression that every time you turn around Labor’s made another mistake.
I’m not saying it will work of course but I think the line that the Libs have shot their bolt and have no sensible plan is misguidedly optimistic.
Ken, see possum pollytics latest graph. Nothing for the tories to get excited about.
I’m with Ken. I think complacency with the election result is misplaced at this stage of the game. I still think Labor are odds on to win, but the Libs are obviously going to use the strategy of throwing so much mud and blindsiding their opponents so often that even if they stink themselves, so will Labor.
It might not work, but that’s their play.
Tis here.
“If you’ve been following Brian’s graphs at Ozpolitics there’s a steady trend back towards Howard.”
According to these graphs Labor is tracking exactly as the Coalition was in 1995-96.
As I’ve said before in Labor View from Broome, unless the coalition completely implodes, the election will be decided in WA where the ALP can win Hasluck and Stirling with a small swing and Kalgoorlie with 6.3% or about 4% if we use pre-2004 figures. I’m going to scrutineer and miss the growing frustration as East coast psephologists like Antony Green wait for the West. Wonder if you can take a mobile into the booth.
Kevin Rennie
Labor View from Broome
http://laborview.blogspot.com/
definitely latham factor in WA.
Canning is a case in point.
ALP really stuffed up on that seat with there candidate pulling out at the last minute.
If you look at the results at the AEC, the Canning swing to Lib was huge.
They even won most of the large suburban booths in rmadale. In 2001 Armadale was 59-60% for ALP ! In 2005 state election, Allanah Mctiernan was re-elected in the state seat of Armadale by a healthy double digit margin.
Canning should at least go back to being ultra marginal.
Meanwhile in nearby Hasluck, the swings were very modest.
I suspect the states rights issue will bite here. It is very big here. A slab of significant state Libs are pro secession for gods sake.
“As Clinton said at the time, “that dog won’t huntâ€?.
But the better quote was from an elderly voter many years earlier when Clinton was running for Governor in Arkansas ” That dog won’t stay on the porch ! “.
Can’t recall where I read the comment that Rudd has a glass jaw and is brittle under pressure . I think Mark may have mentioned it a long time ago?Lets see how his demeanour goes with this issue.
Q’lders care to comment with knowledge from the Goss era?
Have to agree with Gandhi on the elction spec thread – this is mud and it will stick and be used over and over even if not blatantly in later stages of the election.
Who’d be a politician? What a nasty, brutal, base business it is. I thought I was jaded and cynical, but the level of skullduggery discussed here just makes me despair about the prospect of any return to any semblance of idealism in national political life. What won’t these malevolent, soul-less people do to cling onto office? And what a low opinion they must have of the electorate. Why would any half decent person bother to enter political life if these are the games that are played. Just depressing.
Yes, and you’ll find whatever campaign you’re scrutineering for will probably expect it so that you can report in with updates. Just don’t stand over their shoulders and give a running commentary.
A number of years ago I was approached be Gary Black to stand for Labor in my electorate.
This was before the candidate draw system, ie candidates were listed in alphabetical order on the ballot paper and you could always be assured of a “donkey” vote. My surname begins with “A”.
I took a day to think about it and the things you mention in your post were quite evident at that time. I believe they are getting worse now.
These things were well and truly at the forefront in my decision not to stand. I have never been asked again.
As it turned out, the local AMWU Official was selected, he unfortunately had a surname way down the list and just missed out by a handful of votes. The donkey vote factor would have been crucial.
I have never regretted my decision, more so in recent years.