I’ve posted my reflections on the first week of campaigning around at New Matilda’s election blog, PollieGraph.
52 Responses to “Week one in review”
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Nice summary Mark.
It was good to hear Rudd, during the debate, get in a few blows about Costello and Minchin’s ‘real’ thoughts about where Industrial Relations laws should go in the next term.
Watching the number one team member on Insiders yesterday I had an epiphany – so this is what people meant by Keating’s arrogance. The Costello chortle is the sound of hubris.
The $mirker is insufferable. I hope to see his talking head featured in ALP ads soon.
$mirkchoices awaits us if the coalition is returned.
Thanks Mark
That closing statement by the PM was indeed strange: didn’t he have a closing summary prepared? It sounded as if it was a set of points he’d wanted to make on school curricula, but hadn’t managed to squeeze it in anywhere else.
Today’s GG has another gem: Dennis Shanahan on the debate – “Howard only lost because of the inherent edge Rudd had.”
Scholars are rushing to check whether this qualifies as The Shanahan Inherency Theorem. Instances cited include:
* Port Adelaide only lost the AFL Grand Final because of the inherent advantage Geelong gained by scoring more goals.
* Australia didn’t win the Rugby World Cup Final only because of the inherent disadvantage of not having qualified
* Mark Latham led the ALP to electoral defeat only because of the inherent edge the Coalition had
Enjoyed your summary Mark, and the comment on the culture wars. They’re onto something there.
I’ve been weondering all week whether the pressure has really got to Howard and he’s really losing it. Its definitely not the JWH of old, thank goodness.
He loses it on the 7,30 Report with Kerry O’Brien, then with Tracy Grimshaw, snaps at the Chaser – if you’re not going to play along with them, and you’re a pollie, ignore them: 1st. rule of survival – loses his temper at Rudd during the debate, can’t keep PC under control, sounds querulous, and has that extraordinarily odd lame duck finish. What is happening to the man? I don’t mean to be mean but I do hope he loses it absolutely and completely publicly at a crucial stage of the elec tion campaign. That would be some retribution for all the suffering he’s imposed on people over his eleven years of ryranny.
Another oddity was Howard’s supposed detective work on what Rudd had spent 40 minutes talking about with G W Bush and that to Howard it certainly didn’t run to Rudd critiquing the Iraq war. You had to ask yourself if the rodent hadn’t bugged the room or at least made a few enquiries of GW himself. I guess it was meant to show that Rudd’s ‘me-too-ism’ of Coalition policies extends to foreign affairs and that Rudd hasn’t the balls to tell Bush how it’s gonna be with Iraq and the Alliance.
Thanks for the link to New Matilda. Thoroughly enjoyed your critique of Week One.
Was frankly shocked at the fact that John Howard found it impossible to disguise his simmering anger.
His private rages must now be intense.
I think Costello is emerging as a major achilles heel. He looked unfit for office last night, plain and simple. Rudd’s picked it – hence the debate call.
If the Labor Party has a functioning collective brain, which is probable but by no means certain, it will make an ad in which the Costello Smirk features front and centre. The Smirk is the biggest turn off in politics today — bigger, even, than the Brown Sermon.
The Costello comments above are spot on. The ABC’s coverage last night showed him smirking idiotically several times in the first few minutes, after which there was nothing. Were instructions given to show some mercy, and keep the cameras off him, lest he appeared progressively more stupid as the show went on?
And you’re right, Pablo, about the totally bizarre question about what Rudd discussed with Bush. Rudd looked momentarily flummoxed, and who can blame him? Howard’s supposed big moment was question Rudd direct … and that was the first thing that popped into his head? WTF?!
Advantages of incumbency? All year, Howard has danced to Rudd’s tune.
As I’ve said before, it’s the Coalition who have to be radical in order to win. You have to look at Howard in a whole new way in order to vote for him: a man who gets climate change and its impact on water usage, a man who understands broadband and technology and research and education. By contrast, Labor just have to maintain their image of earnest competence as though they were the incumbent government. Rudd has achieved what Hewson, Beazley and Crean couldn’t – the small target strategy, it’s working!
“The Smirk is the biggest turn off in politics today — bigger, even, than the Brown Sermon.”
Please, Spiros. What happened to you on that early trip to the bush. Did the ‘drop bears’ get you and make you hate nature ever since?
AndrewE, I think the small target strategy is working because there isn’t an apparently level of fear associated with it. With The Beazer and Crean it seemed they were too afraid to be their own men. Either they were dancing to Howard’s tune or trying not to upset the factions. Rudd appears to have have told the factions to FOQ and has made Howard dance to his tune. Where Beazer and Crean meekly agreed – ‘we’ll do what he does too’ – Rudd sounds more like ‘Oooh, good idea. We’ll do that too but here’s how we’ll do it better.’ A far more proactive and positive message.
We caught the final 30mins of the debate last night and were quite inspired by Rudd’s passion. Takes a lot to inspire us. Impressive.
Looks like promises of roads on the never, never is not going to help the Tories either.
I find Mark’s comments most interesting when he says: “Labor felt the need to distinguish their Technocrat in Chief from the Government and to counter the charges of ‘me tooism’ which could easily slide into a ‘what does he stand for?’ attack.�
Herald Sun opinion-maker Andrew Bolt asked his readers only last week:
“But what does he (Kevin Rudd) really stand for?”
This is the sort of question I seem to recall got asked a lot of Kim Beazley, so I found it interesting that it was also applied to Kevin Rudd this last week.
Perhaps it’s just a standard question asked of all Opposition Leaders who find “standing out” a quite standard challenge.
Perhaps this standard challenge imposed on Opposition Leaders is also why PM John Howard said on the day of calling the election: “love me or loathe me, the Australian people know where I stand on all the major issues of importance to their future”.
Yet the really problematic thing about the typical media coverage of this campaign, particularly with the use of the term “me too-ism�, is an over-emphasis in “what� the vision and policy positions are: whether they differ between the parties or whether there has been a significant convergence of political ideology.
Yesterday, Glenn Milne wrote in the Sunday Herald Sun :
“Rudd, as Peter Costello pointed out, essentially co-opted the Coalition’s $34 billion tax plan. But he’s added a social equity “bolt on” that fits the Labor story and Rudd’s personal pitch to become Prime Minister. This is differentiated “me too-ism”â€?.
Milne adds:
“What Rudd has done is dual track his messages; he appeals to self-interest by embracing the Government’s tax cuts, but he also satisfies the vanity of voters who at the same time want to regard themselves as selfless by convincing them Labor’s “alternative” is about the future of their children rather than their hip pocket.â€?.
So, is this the way of the future?
To “dual track� messages, to simultaneously neutralize some differences and emphasise others, while resulting in much convergence in vision and policy positions. Is this the future that Glenn Milne speaks of when he uses the tongue-twisting term “differentiated me too-ism�?
You see evidence of this in The Age editorial today. Ed writes:
“Labor aims to protect its year-long lead in opinion polls by neutralising any appealing Coalition policy. Mr Rudd is not the only one narrowing differences. Mr Howard has done the same on climate change, Aboriginal reconciliation and higher education.�
So, in other words, Mr. Rudd is “narrowing the economic differences�, while Mr. Howard is “narrowing the social differences�. Convergence indeed.
However, I challenge Ed from The Age when he asks:
“If Labor does not present clearly different policies, why risk change?�
In other words, if “what� Labor presents isn’t any different, “why� change?
No doubt this question is raised with the intention to keep The Age impartial, but I suspect the question is “too rational� to really make sense of voting intentions in a really personal and holistic way. Such a question focuses entirely on “need for change�, rather than elevating the concept of need to a “desire for change�.
It doesn’t take into account the example of a desire for a change in government in 1996, even before then Opposition Leader John Howard had released any detailed policy, as The Age itself remembers in an article titled Men in the mirror :
“To unveil detailed policies before the election, Howard was quoted as saying in May 1995, would be to invite Keating — “a prime minister who has run out of puff and ideas” — to steal them. It was as bald as that.
He made vague “headland speeches” building a blurred, motherhood picture of the sort of comfortable and relaxed Australia he would like to lead. But he never made a bold statement of principle or policy that might give Keating a target.
And when the election campaign came around, Howard and his front benchers released their array of policies with such dizzying rapidity it was all but impossible for Keating and his colleagues to begin to get a handle on what it all meant, let alone mount a sustainable attack on any single front.�
Perhaps the media was able to successfully place an importance on “what� Kim Beazley stood for, largely by planting doubt in people’s minds that he stood for anything different, but any attempts to try this on Kevin Rudd is too little, too late because of the relationship this 2007 election appears to have with the 1996 election. Not necessarily that the Opposition is guaranteed to win, but that “what� either side stands for has been reduced to “commodity status�, except on a few key issues.
It’s therefore required that the media can grasp “how� politicians conduct their program and “how� voters respond as a more important guide to investigating the alternative candidates than being too insistent on demanding “what� is stood for to be a policy of difference.
Poll Bludger has reports from Tasmania of a major break in the latest Newspoll.
Nice work there BearCave.
Hey, thanks Joe2 for your comment.
I feel that the latest Newspoll especially confirms what I’ve written in the last paragraph of my previous post:
“It’s therefore required that the media can grasp “howâ€? politicians conduct their program and “howâ€? voters respond as a more important guide to investigating the alternative candidates than being too insistent on demanding “whatâ€? is stood for to be a policy of difference.”
For months we’ve been told to trust the assumption that “the real campaign” begins when the election is called. There was a small indication in last week’s polls that it could have been a possibility, yet this week’s Newspoll will instead reaffirm a long-term trend.
It would seem that not only is there a convergence in “what” the two parties stand for, but there’s also a convergence in “how” the voters are responding to the actual election campaign and “how” they responded to the pre-election campaign.
With the amount of government advertising over the last two years, perhaps voters have been feeling like they’ve already had a two year long election campaign imposed on them.
…From Justin
Actually, the debate brought something I have been suspecting for some time: Howard is deteriorating intellectually. The bad temper, the grumpiness is actually despair as he sees and understands his powers waning rapidly. The stress of the election campaign and so much riding on it has brought on a catastrophic stress. The latest poll is a reflection of this.
It is hard not too genuinely feel sorry for him, as one human being for another. He is riding his rickety political tumbril now as we sit and watch and knit. He should have retired and enjoyed his days in the sun, playing with his grandchildren.
Did anyone see that incredible photograph of Janette grabbing his coat (he might have been going in the wrong direction), after the debate?
This election is a form of sadism (and sadomasochism on his part to have gone through with it). It is like watching Pope John Paul II in that Vatican window just losing it physically.
Politics is a blood sport.
Newspoll is in, and it’s a rip snorter.
58:42.
That was before the debate effect.
Oh, Sir Henry, politics is a nasty bis.
“He should have retired and enjoyed his days in the sun, playing with his grandchildren.”
Did you mean ‘praying’ rather “playing” there?
The implications of 58:42 – even if rogue – are huge.
Our pathetic, risible, compliant media will now be jostling with unseemly haste for the last yellow rubber dinghy off HMAS Howard.
Watch them now, gasping and waddling their fat insider Canberra ars*s down the plank, pushing old ladies into to the drink to be first snake to toast the new regime.
Hey, this is for you, GG, et al: Thanks a pantload for keeping us “informed� lately, losers.
You know what?
F*ck you.
Ah, that was vintage Lateline! Tony Jones and George Megalogenis in superb form giving it to Gerard Henderson. In the meantime, from left field, Boltie got stuck into Gerard, just as Lefty said, Boltie is half way off the gangplank already. Gerard seething that his old comrade in arms has done the dirty.
Boy, this was just great telly.
Oh dear, Lefty E, I can only agree.
It seems Christmas will come twice this year.
Oh well, there you are then. It’s Voldemort.
Is there a scar on The Kruddster’s brow?
No, but here’s some footage that includes the moment under discussion – not to mention the warmup to the respective parties and wakes afterwards.
I hafta say it was a real Kennedy/Nixon debate. The differences were stark, not in terms of policy but terms of personality. Can’t say I warmed any more to Rudd and there are things I do like about Howard but sheesh that really was grumpy old granddad vs smooth on top of his brief technocrat. I know who I’d rather have leaing our dealing with the BRICs, the EU and NAFTA, the unions, the big end of town, the public service and the infotainment/technology/industrial/military complexes in the 21st century.
For me, the drop dead, get the fuck out of here moment was when Howard had to sum up at end his own vision for the future. More history studies. Back to the past.
Having said all that, the debate was a quantum leap in terms of technocratic and managerial knowledge, general ability to frame an arguement and refreshingly free of dogwhistling (by both Kruddyand JoHo) compared to what passes for debate in the US primaries now across all parties.
Can you imagine US pollies in similar circumstances getting testy with eachother over OCED figures. No, it’d be all religlion, culture wars, the flag and support our troops. Howard did try that last one on a bit but you could see his heart wasn’t really in it. In fact his heart (and mind) didn’t seem to be in it at all. Where’s Kruddy’s organs seemed to be alarmingly overengaged.
I’m voting for the one that can still control his bowels and keep his wits about him during long long long meetings with the Middle Kingdom’s rulers.
What type of Shamahan mea culpa will we get tomorrow?
My guess is some sweaty-beaded brow tosh along the lines of “Rudd showed his reform credentials with the tax package, and the voters responded PLUS I HAVE STATE SECRETS SPARE ME I VAS ONLY FOLLOWINK…”
It’s a far, far better thing we do than we’ve ever done before.
On Hendo on Lateline. He looked like he’d just been told he had inoperable cancer.
Let’s not forget the era of mendacity, cravenness and philistinism that the cabal that surrounded Howard have meted out for more than a decade.
When Louis XVI was guillotined the crowd rushed forward to dip their handkerchiefs in his blood. One man put his stained hankie to his mouth. “It tastes bitter!” he shouted.
I wonder how Howard’s blood would taste.
I see Bolter’s crossing the Rhine.
I might cite in work in preparing my case for “extraordinary rendition” to the Russian quarter.
The Bolter has crossed the Rhine because he doesn’t fancy 10 years in Magadan.
And I forgot to mention in my last comment, good to see you back Sir Henry.
The blogosphere can always afford more bluff common sense filtered through some sturdy face fungus stained only by fortified wines and nicotine – and not egg, dammnit.
Finally Howard has been revealed as an ill tempered control freak, again.
Howard’s Theme Song, as performed by Skyhooks. (no, it’s not Ego either)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gJ8DQDVGUs
That Lateline was superb viewing. I’m sure Megalogenis was trying not to crack up as Bolt started laying the slipper into Hendo. Bolt sniffed the winds a few months ago with the Liberal leadership challenge but once sorted climbed back in. Watching Bolt tonight I couldn’t think of a better description than the Simpsons line “Krusty want’s out!”. He has no intention of locking himself in that cabin with Hendo, Shamaham and all the other clowns.
Looking at the Newspoll numbers what happened to the supposed “bounce” once the election was called?. It will be very interesting to see how Shanahan spins this one. Give it another week or two and the Libs will take the gloves off and really kick the smear campaign into overdrive (Latham and bucks night video) and in the final week of their existence it will all be “Rudd’s just like Howard, so why change?”.
this reminds me of the incredibly stark contrast between the parties, when the ALP wins vs when the Liberals have romped home.
the partying, the chaos, the joy, the drunkedness, the screaming and hollering, the mugging of cameras by supporters, when they crossed to any ALP candidate in for eg. 83,86,88,93.
compared to the repressed, upright clapping, kids being restrained, a few very hearty cheers and many happy faces, but mostly sober, sensible folk in well lit rooms celebrating liberal wins in 96,98,01,04.
i’d love to see this footage cut together – it’s still the proddies vs the micks. the working classes vs the middle classes when you watch their footsoldiers in victory.
the mother of all election night parties awaits us hopefully.
The aftermath of tonight’s Newspoll; Malcolm Farr on Sky News tonight
” 16% two party preferred? well..if that continues for another three weeks we’ll have Liberals throwing themselves out of office windows”.
It’s an Austin Powers moment.
“Yeah baby”.
Why is the Smirker laughing? Because things are going his way. I think that cutaway shot was his Shadenfreude (link) at Howard’s discomfiture. The $mirker hates Howard more than Frank Calabrese. I think this is a far more complex election than just simple Manichaeism of Rudd v Howard. Which brings me to the Mad Monk, my local member. He has been giving the old letterbox at the Manor a real workout. Here he is with his latest. Note the good old fashioned “Miss” for Lady Fiona: not for him the radical lezzo separatist “Ms.”
He covers the issues nicely, don’t you think viewers? I particularly like the appeal to protect our local environment, as if it were detached from the other, non-local environment, which does not deserve protection.
And don’t you love the Noblesse Oblige advice to not experiment with our vote. Sound advice from our betters.
PS Tony no longer writes to me, personally – probably because I am on his blacklist. (I always reply to his literature in full, say 12 or so pages – invariably written under the stimulating influence of a cheroot of something exotic plus a schooner or two of old tawny, as M. Nabakov has correctly pointed out.
Sir Henry,
What we are seeing happen to JWH isw called karma – and he’s got a lot to get back yet.
Speaking of letterboxing got one from the Lib running in Perth,Hoons get a run not to sure what hes going to do but I,m thinking up a nice reply.
Hendo looked like he eaten a hand full of glass on Lateline last night,may he can see the end is nigh,what will the NEWS Ltd spinners do as the ships sinks
“Why is the Smirker laughing? Because things are going his way”
On the latest polling the Smirker is in grave danger of losing his own seat.
If that happens – even if doesn’t, for his life as Opposition Leader will be nasty, brutish and short – he will go to his grave loathing Howard.
If it wasn’t for Howard hanging on, and on, and on, then the Smirker could have been a contender! He could have been Prime Minister!
Of course the Smirker has no one to blame but himself. He didn’t have the cojones to take Howard on, and look where it has got him.
Gerry Harvey – what a tool:
There’s one of his Harvey Norman stores here in Armidale. They won’t be seeing any more of my money.
Nor mine,
David. also in Armidale.
Has anybody else in rural seats been getting those National Farmers Federation anti-Labor ads?
Seems they also want to scrap the “Fairness Test” [?} for Workchoices so they can also pay rural workers slave wages.
I saw one last night on Ch 7 Perth – dunno why they’re targeting metro areas, unless it’s for the Hobby Farmers in the Hills.
Oh Come on Spiros. Prahran, South Yarra, Toorak, Armadale, Malvern, Glen Iris, Camberwell all going to the Labor Party? I know Kevvie has a winning smile to trump the Smirker’s smirk but seriously…
Sir Henry, the Smirker holds the seat with a margin of 8.8 per cent. If the swing is on, this seat is winnable.
The southern part of the electorate (Carnegie, Murrumbeena, Hughesdale) is far from from affluent andthe Labor Party holds the state seat of Prahran.
The doctors’ wives will vote Labor because they can no longer abide that beastly man John Howard and that nice Mr Rudd presents no threat, unlike that awful Mr Latham. The 26 year old still-living-at-home doctors’ children will vote Green because they are worried about climate change and will preference Labor.
Stranger things have happened.
Difficult to say from this distance how the Nurses’ dispute will play in Victoria. Things seemed quite chirpy for the ALP there.
Nurses dispute is interesting Mark – the Libs, state or Fed, have run a mile. Arent touching with a bargepole
You cant help thinking its good for federal labor: all this anti-union cant in the air, and meanwhile the nurses are on illegal action, with major public support.
Not so good for Brumby. But who cares about that!
Saw Hockey on the news last night bagging out Brumby et al for being stingy with nurses’ pay, Lefty E, so that’s not quite right. Stunning hypocrisy.
Still, hope it does play the way you’re suggesting.
well, yes: Hockey anomalously playing it pro-union excepted. As you say, hardly helps TEH FEAR!
I imagine Hockey’s headed for a somewhat lower profile for the rest of the campaign!
I wonder how comments from WA ANF Head Mark Olson basically saying he supports AWA for Nurses have gone down in Victoria.
There was a similar dispute during the WA State Election in 2005 and Olson had signed a deal with the libs.
Gallop and McGinty in the last week averted strike action by agreeing to a new deal during the last week or 2 prior to the election.
Paul Burns wrote:
I only saw the NFF ads when briefly switching to commercial telly (on a rare break from the Disney channel). They have one reasonable sounding one about water, and that stupid one about workplace reform. It beats me what they are smoking: farmers simply cannot get labour when they are competing with the mines (especially in places like WA – some of those little farming towns are turning into ghost towns). The NFF’s brilliant plan to combat this? Offer even less money for farm work. It’s brilliant!
Nice to see somebody else from Armidale too!
David,
Armidale. Best little country town in NSW. And I wasn’t even born here.
NFF are probably smoking cow dung.