Today’s instalment:
There are criticisms within the Liberal camp about the extent Mr Howard seeks the advice of his former chief of staff, Grahame Morris, and that Mr Howard appears to be running his own marginal seat campaign against Labor’s Maxine McKew in his Sydney electorate of Bennelong.
I guess it would be better tactics if Howard just conceded defeat in Bennelong? Wtf?
There’s probably an element of suppressed wishful thinking “within the Liberal camp”. They just wish the old bugger had nicked off ages ago, and they’re unconsciously wishing personal retribution on him.
Check this long list of sprays out from *unnamed* Ministers, reported in The Bulletin:
Another senior Liberal said it was “ridiculous” that the party hierarchy was telling MPs that support in the marginal seats was “holding up” when all the publicly available research suggested the Coalition was “completely f**ked”.“These people, some ministers and Howard, are telling us the best case scenario is that we get 49% of the vote and win by one or two seats,” the senior Liberal said.
“That’s the best case? They think we’re mushrooms – we know what’s going on out there.”
Ok, don’t believe a word of “leaked Liberal polling” from now on.
There’s more, including the positioning for the spoils of defeat Mark wrote about at PollieGraph. As he says:
‘Every man and woman for himself’ in the rush to save seats and maneouvre for the spoils of Opposition is a terrible look during a campaign, as the hapless Queensland Liberals could have told their Federal counterparts.
In the Queensland election last year, the Libs started eating themselves on day two. In this year’s federal contest, it’s taken two weeks. But it’s on, and it’s not going to help their cause one iota.
Ta, Kim
That’s a ripper little article: no beating around the bush, no whistling in the dark…. interesting that Cossie is castigated for not trying to wrest the leadership from Mr Howard 6 weeks ago. Many of us opined then that it was TOO LATE for Cossie, and too late for the Govt to think it could win by that method. Desperation?
Pundits to the left of me, pundits to the right
Into the Valley of Death rode the four hundred….
Another point to note is that none of the senior Libs mention a (future) terrorist incident as an election winner, unlike some grim humourists here on LP.
The Libs just think Kev’ll win if he doesn’t mess it up.
Doesn’t explain all those Lib posters with slogans like “Joe Bloggs: Doing The Job In Whatever”, with no indication that Joe Bloggs MP is a dyed-in-the-wool Liberal and enthusiastic Howard supporter. Either John Howard provides Election-Winning Leadership, or he doesn’t.
Agreed, Ambigulous. There’s no Tampa or terrorism on the horizon. Even if there was, I reckon with drongoes like Andrews and Keelty around, it’d probably work in Labor’s favour these days…
I’m not even sure that a terrorist incident would save Howard now. My guess is the electorate has pretty well internalised the message that Howard’s bowing and scraping to the now discredited neo-con agenda has made us more of a target than we would otherwise be.
The fact is that his luck has run out and all the issues that used to resonate for him are no longer working in his favour. He can talk, but no-one is listening. Not even his own Cabinet.
Great article Kim.
One might have thought that they would have learned from other pre-election sniping (Labor’s in 2004 a good example) that they are potentially contributing to a worse result for the government. Perhaps they don’t care.
Certainly, whoever has to pick up the pieces will have a rough job digging out of the electoral hole that they seem intent on excavating for themselves.
And how long does it take to rebuild a caucus so bitterly divided? Or will the “one leader” strategy work for them here - that doing away with JH post-election (whatever the result) will solve their problems and quell internal fighting?
Howard’s backstabbing accomplices have given up the unequal struggle to win this election.
Instead, they are sharpening their shivs for the next, much dirtier election — leadership of Her Majesy’s Much Diminished Opposition.
I would not be surprised if the Liberal Party ceased to exist as the more moderate remnant of the Party seeks to distance themselves from Howard’s toxic legacy.
Absolutely Katz, its been all about the opposition benches for at least a week now. Turnbull’s out - he’s clearly going to go Costello for the job, probably after the no chance first term.
Wheels coming off!
Btw, even the famously pessimistic ALP hacks I know quietly believe they’re going to win.
This would not be a bad thing. A lot of people are holding their noses and voting Labor this time, purely because that is the only way of getting rid of Howard and forcing a party now hostage to the far right to rediscover its long disenfranchised small ‘l’ moderate centre.
Surely it is not inconceivable to imagine a wholesale realignment of party politics in Australia with a left-centre social democratic party pitched against a centrist liberal democrat party and a right-leaning conservative/rural party.
I am hopeing like mad the Ruddster wins and wins well, all I want is to see the expressions on Howard,Dower and Co, and I hope some one has Ackerman on, i think the day after for the Fat Toad is going to be interesting
Not inconceivable. But my gut reaction is that it seems unlikely (at least in the short-to-mid-term). I think that most people visiting this blog would love to see the pendulum of Australian politics swing back to the left. But we’ve been heading to the right for so damn long that we’re all supporting an openly conservative opposition candidate and … waiting expectantly, hoping it all works out in the end.
Mr Denmore, while I think a Liberal realignment away from the hard-right in opposition will be helpful… I think they have to balance the votes from moral conservatives that they will lose to Family First, the nationals and possibly independents and compare that to the votes they’ll gain from the ALP, Democrats and Greens. I think if the Democrats fizzle at this election then former fiscal conservative Democrat voters could be seduced (and possibly Green protest votes?) however, I think it will take more than one election to win these voters. On the other hand they would stand to lose moral conservatives fairly quickly if they see Family First as a viable alternative.
These people have been well and truly distanced already.
Not inconceivable, but not likely either. You have to assume that the ALP would happily give up its centre ground and that they have no rivals on the left. You have to assume that the failure of the Liberal Party and the departure of Howard sees an embrace, however reluctant, of moderate liberalism (indeed, they are the only counterbalance to the taxic far right that even today’s Liberal mainstream recognise as repellent to voters).
There is certainly scope for a new centrist liberal force, and GetUp, NotHappyJohn, and the wreckage of the Democrats have a role in shaping that. If the moderate Libs arrive in force they could be an important bloc, but they’ll have greater leverage in the Liberal Party for a while and may be willing to take their chances.
I dunno folks… Still four long weeks to go, and Howard is the master of the last-minute wedge. Sixteen seats to pick up, and the marginal seats are still the key.
Arthur Sinodis (former guru to the PM) today said the Libs can’t be counted out, and if I were a betting man I would think that odds of well over $3 for a Howard victory might be worth a flutter.
I keep thinking of the ETA bombing on the eve of Spanish elections, which Aznar pretended was an Al Quaeda attack… Like I said, still four weeks to go.
If you wanna play a game, maybe you can try to work out how the post-Howard schism in the Libs will play out: Costello-ites versus Turnbull-ites? And you can read the between the lines in Sham-I-am’s crap to see which clique Rupert & Co are pushing. I’m thinking George “Lying Rodent” Brandis and friends might figure prominently in a post-Howard team.
Which the Left won…
Look he’s been producing attempted rabbits all year. Nothing has worked. It’s Kevin07’s to lose. Short of a spectacular fuck up, as the Liberals are saying privately, it’s probably all over, red rover.
JWH no longer has any credibility outside of the dedicated. To pull a rabbit at any stage requires cedibility and the Libs were not smart enough to see that.
It’s good that the discipline is there, but any money put on the Libs is wasted.
After Howard, the deluge: there are no “Turnbull-ites”, the right will have to join with the moderates to bump off the far right, and everyone will undermine Costello because familiarity breeds contempt. He shoulda gone for the World Bank job last year in one last fuck-you to JWH. The Liberals always become a rabble in Opposition. Watch the flight of talent to NSW and Victoria, where the best chances of a Coalition government will come from.
Costello WAS the rabbit. He wouldn’t come out.
I dunno folks… Still four long weeks to go, and Howard is the master of the last-minute wedge. Sixteen seats to pick up, and the marginal seats are still the key.
Well, yesterday I was rung by an opinion pollster and was asked, after several other questions, which party I thought was going to win, regardless of my own preference. Honestly, I paused for quite a long time. My real answer would have been “I hope it’s Labor’. Finally I said ‘Labor’ but I’m not counting on it until it happens.
“I keep thinking of the ETA bombing on the eve of Spanish elections, which Aznar pretended was an Al Quaeda attack”
They were an Al Qaida attack. Aznar pretended they weren’t, so the voters wouldn’t draw a link with Spain putting troops into Iraq. The voters didn’t buy it.
And buggar me, Sinodinos says Howard still can win. Why not ask Jeanette while we are at it?
Stop fretting, Nervous Nellies.This election is over. Stick a fork in Howard. He is done.
Andrew E, that’s if Howard hasn’t already driven the small-L Liberal species to extinction which last time I looked he certainly had. I thought he’d spent most of his incumbency in the Liberal Party exterminating them. Eg what happened to Ian McPhee? And he also sidelined Amanda Vanstone for most of her time in parliament - now she’s gone. I also remember how the Liberal Dries rallied in 1993 despite their drubbing at the polls and soon got up on deck. No the Dries are a the very hardiest and toughest of that pest species of Liberal. Not even Myxamitoses can wipe them out. All I can say is: They’ll be back, especially if they stage the biggest resurrection since Jesus Christ on November 24 which hopefully is unlikely…
So I guess the real bit of news for the Liberals is the fight to the death for the Liberal leadership between Peter Costello and Malcom Turnbull. From the sound of the Bulletin article it sounds like a really vicious hum dinger of a bar-room brawl. I knew it! That Turnbull just has to get the top dog possie no matter what and there’s no limit to the dramas he puts on to get it. Don’t expect him to be small-L Liberal however…
“what happened to Ian McPhee?”
McPhee was shoved aside in the seat of Goldstein for the high priest of Liberal intellectualism (if that is not an oxymoron) David Kemp who has since been succeeded by Andrew Robb, who is one of Howard’s junior ministers.
Now Robb got 60 p.c. of the 2PP vote in 2004 so you’d think he’d be pretty confident of getting himself re-elected. If so, you’d be wrong. His latest election material contains not one mention of his party or his leader or the Labor Party, because that would draw attention to the party that dares not speak its name.
John Howard’s own members have disowned him. Their only hope, they think, is fooling the voters into believing that they have got nothing to do with him. These are the desperate acts of desparate men.
Clearly they don’t think Howard’s got the proverbial snowflake’s chance of pulling it off.
That’s because he doesn’t.
Nelson will be Liberal leader after November 24. Turnbull is a strong possibility to lose his seat ( also I don’t think he’d hang around for 6 years in opposition). Costello won’t stay, this campaign has highlighted how weak and insignificant he really is, plus the fact that if the swing in Victoria is as large as what’s privately being bandied about he’ll be in the position Howard is now. And when you look at what’s left Abbott & Downer. There’s not much to choose from.
At least Nelson won’t have to worry about being voted out.
When you take a real good look at the Liberal Party’s elected representatives there’s not much talent there and never has.
I don’t know why anyone would be worried about Turnbull. He is not a politician. He is a banker. His implosion over the past few days is nothing short of expected. It’s a reversion to type.
Likewise Costello, tomorrow at the debate, will revert to type. He’ll be sucking his jowls in, trying to look serious, statesmanlike, but as soon as he thinks Swan has made a boo-boo The Smirk will reappear, like Dr. Strangelove’s Arm. That will be the point Costello loses the debate and the Liberal Party officially will move to a certainty to lose the election.
All Costello has is numbers and tables, like some petrol head running off the performance figures of his hotted up V-8 roadster. He thinks that’s a big deal (the kerfuffle over Rudd’s “Tax tables gaffe” showed this… who remembers it now?). All trees, no forest.
Nothing much changes. Howard is acting nasty and crank during interviews, because he really is nasty and cranky. And terrified.
They can’t hide their terror, fear and loathing of each other for much longer. The pressure’s too intense.
Labor will romp this one in.
Having had the opportunity his week to observe Costello close up in person I can confirm the smirk never goes away. He was addressing a bunch of high school kids about economics so played a compeletely straight bat, barely refered to the opposition, no big political statements, being statemanlike. He was serious, sober and above the fray. And yet, he still looked like he knew lots of clever things you didn’t and was absolutely bursting at the seams to tell you all about them, interspersed with a few insults. I was transfxed. He really can’t help it.
OK, yes, sorry - it wasn’t ETA, and the Socialists won. But my point was that this was a last-minute event, totally out of Aznar’s control, and he very nearly turned it to his advantage.
Who would have thought you could turn a boatload of desperate refugees to your advantage, and build it up in the media to the point where it wins you an election? I’m not putting my money on Howard, but I like to crush the cockroaches head and make damned sure that the legs have stopped twitching before I throw them in the bin.
Know wot I mean?
You get all the exciting gigs, Amanda!
gandhi, as Andrew E commented in a different (but related) context, you don’t get any second prizes in politics and “nearly turn(ing) it to his advantage” is about as useful as Beazley “nearly winning”.
I’m with those who think that he’s so discredited that almost anything coming over the metaphorical horizon would redound to his disadvantage. And we’ve got another month of shambolic negativism to go. All this stuff builds and builds.
I’ve been trying to argue since April that it’s pretty fruitless searching the tealeaves of campaigns past for signs as to what’s going to happen this time round. The dynamic is different. And the dynamic is very much that of an old tired, cranky government that’s run out of ideas and even viable political strategies.
At this stage of the game, you’d have to expect them to get even worse and fall apart even more markedly over the next little while
Ratty sounds totally exhausted and dispirited from the sound of it. Sean Carney from the SMH says he hasn’t been out and about nearly as much as he could be.
…
He was pretty awful on the 7 30 report tonight.
If I were a Lib strategist at the moment, I’d be worrying if he’s gonna go the distance.
“Turnbull, who previously contradicted Howard on nuclear power, now stands accused of being more interested in saving his seat than in a Coalition victory.”
Perceptive of Shaun Carney. But put another way, Turnbull is doing exactly as a candidate should in campaigning to win his seat. He is responding to the majority of his own constituency who (it would appear) are pro-gay, anti-nuclear, antil-Mill (I think he tried) and pro-Kyoto. What’s to complain about?
And its also probably true that for Turnbull it does not matter if the Howard Government loses this election. Either way, being a risk-taker, he can manufacture his own luck in any subsequent (or current) leadership contest.
Which is why I hope he hangs on to Wentworth. We need a functional, articulate, and courageous Opposition (and a balanced Senate) to keep the bastards honest, and Flash Harry might be just the man for the job.
Well, at least it might be amusing to watch him try to hold the Liberal Party together after Howard’s ignominious defeat. And it might make a man of him.
Didn’t he look old and tired? I mean he is 67 but this campaign seems to be really taking it out of him.
Mark, you are too kind. He was pathetic.
Again, he refused to accept any responsibility for his once proud utterances. Promises on ‘interest rates’ have rebounded big-time.
Personally, I wish this campaign would go on forever (sort of). I want to enjoy Howard being ‘done slowly’ with apologies to Keating.
Yes Mark, he Howard was very ordinary on the 7:30 report. Someone has told him to smile more rather than display that constant pained grimace - the “which piece of 4 x 2 is going to hit me next” look.
Problem is, his mouth smiles but his eyes and face don’t, so you get the grotesque forced “I am pretending to smile” look.
Forget the left right paradigm. Labor moves to the right, Dems in the middle, Greens left drift right, Family First and Pauline Hanson far right. Yawn.
We are facing an unparalled emergency. If we don’t get climate change under control we are facing upheaval of bubonic plague or large meteorite impact proportions. In short, if we don’t take urgent and immediate action we are cactus. Rudd’s victory could well be pyrrhic.
Yet again we were reduced to the same tired formulas: “I’m not doing a running commentary.” “Other people will make those judgements.” “Look out! Behind you!”
“Nelson will be Liberal leader after November 24.” Not if tonight’s 4 Corners story gets any traction, Greg. He seems to have been caught red-handed wasting $6 billion for dud planes with less effectiveness than the 40 year-old F111. On his personal say-so against the advice of the Defence boffins.
Stop press. The comeback is on. Newspoll swings to Howard by 4% according to Lateline tonight. Nobody knows why. Interest rate rise favours Howard? Tony Jones speculates. It aint over till its over.
Nah, just a correction of last newspoll.
[link]
Too consistent apocalyptic results of polls from Liberal-held marginals demonstrate that these nationwide polls such as Newspoll are too blunt instruments to give more than a very blurred picture of the electoral carnage that is about to befall the Howard government.
Margin of error last time. Margin of error this time.
Today my wife was returning from swimming in a bus with a class of 5 year-olds. One saw an election sign and soon the whole class was chanting, “Good-bye John Howard!”
Funnily enough the sign wasn’t of John Howard at all but of Arch Bevis, who is not as young and hirsute as he used to be.
Out of the mouths of babes, as they say.
Analysis and graphs of the latest Newspoll up here: [link]
Watch how this changes the media narrative for the week (Galaxy and AC Nielsen polls non-withstanding). Really though, with Labor strong as ever on 48, there’s no problem.
Just watching Robb on Lateline. He is suffering from ‘dry mouth’ disease. Seems to be catching.
I find it so ridiculously odd that movement in these polls hold so much sway within the media. I guess they are just so hard-up for writing articles that anything is pretty much worth a story. I’m beginning to get the impression very few of the pundits actually believe their “movement in teh polls” stories anymore.
An old sage at Mitchelton on Sunday reckoned JHo has first stage dementia, walking out the wrong door, addressing a forum with “Mr Speaker” and forgetting key facts. He is definitely shuffling and leaning to the left on his morning walks. That would be the ultimate rabbit - the dessicated coconut dropping off the tree mid campaign. Then wouldnt the worm turn!
Robb was as equally pathetic as Howard. Speaking of Nelson, another story in the Herald has him using his ministerial power, when he was Education Minister, to veto academic grants to projects he took a personal dislike to. Academics want to know if these included 27 proposals that Paddy McGuinness recommended not go ahead. Both he and Julie Bishop have declined to comment.
And Shamaham is channelling Thin Lizzy
[link]
I’ve put up a post on the Newspoll here:
[link]
Mark @ 10.31 pm. Hear, hear; margin of error both times.
+/- 3% ?
+/- 4% ??
PM was old, tired, cranky, just about spluttering on “7.30 Report” last night. But where is the campaigning support from the likes of Abbott, Downer, $weetie?
Megan, my focus was beyond 24 November.
I was a member of the Liberal Party from 1986 to 2000, I saw this first-hand. Brave friends lay armed, etc. I don’t think you can be a small-l liberal and be a member of the Liberal Party any more than you can be a Communist and deny Stalin, Mao etc., but people do it - people other than me.
This is a man for whom the reforms of the Hawke government were too much. He’s had plenty of time to come up with solutions and he’s done bugger-all. Place not thy faith in princes, I say.
Yeah, you can talk about Robert Hill and Philip Ruddock, too. You pay a high price for selling out, but there are rewards.
I’ve seen the whites of their eyes and have argued them to apoplexy and whimpering. They can dish it out but they can’t cop it. Still, if you’re going to go to all the trouble of setting up straw men, far be it from me to deny you the satisfaction of knocking them down.
If you must, and I can’t help myself, it looks a lot like 1983. The Libs are even going on with “we’re not waiting for the world”. The irony is that there’s only one person at the top of Australian politics who was also there in 1983, and he’s the worst of the lot.
? Malcolm F? John H? Hawkie?
Reports of The Death and Destruction of the Liberal Party -
though sincerely desired, are premature IMHO. Look to the antecedents: a landslide rejection, followed by rebuilding and later election win(s)…
ALP after the 1975/1977 double banger
Rebuilding of Liberal Party by R.G. Menzies for 1949
Preparation of ALP for gov’mint by E.G. Whitlam, 1968-1972.
The Liberals’ll be back; it may take 6 years, perhaps only 3? But fighting over the spolis of defeat, that’ll be a dogfight to behold. One of the choicest features will be when (former) MP’s tell the world what they REALLY thought of John Winston Howard. By my estimate, that will begin on Sunday 25th November, only 26 days from now. Can’t wait! Will it rival “The Latham Diaries” for sheer venom?
Not 3: look to the States for examples of what will happen. Labor won’t win in a landslide, but the Libs will fall apart such that 2010 will be a walkover.
Turnbull has the best claim to not drinking the Howard kool-aid because of his experience over the Republic, because he’s independently wealthy and because he’s had the least time in Parliament: four years ago he was a private citizen. The rest of them: you’re right, Ambigulous, it will be disgracefully gutless and contribute to the effect described above.
Again with the historic examples:
- in 1949, nobody predicted that Labor would be out of office for two decades and that the next Labor PM wasn’t even in Parliament then.
- in 1972, everybody thought the Libs were gone for a generation, next Lib PM not even etc.
I don’t know Andrew E. Why do you think people are so obsessed with The Economy? It’s all because Ratty and his Economic Rationalist creeps go around spouting facts and figures and hoarding all the budget surpluses. It’s their legacy and it’s going to be around for a long time yet, considering that the current wisdom is that the best perceived manager of The Economy will be the party to win the next election. The Labor can’t get away from it to witness Kevin Rudd’s hand-on-heart declarations that he is a die-hard, badge-wearing fiscal conservative.
The average punter just thinks The Economy is so complicated these days that they need experts in charge of it. The trouble is, Ratty and Co. are very good at looking as if they know how to manage The Economy and telling everyone they preside over a first rate country with a first-rate growth rate, when actually Australia’s performance has been pretty bloody average…