It will be very nice indeed in the event of a Rudd victory to read the papers reporting about what the government is actually doing, policy-wise, rather than an endless succession of stories and non-stories about polls and the horse race.
Itâs certainly been the year of the poll, and in the closing stages of the campaign, almost all observers but the most recalcitrant have finally caught up to the fact that theyâve been telling us something for a long time.
But not all. Take the Adelaide Sunday Mailâs leader writer, for instance:
That Prime Minister John Howard’s Government stands this morning under threat is a mystery.
Really?
Tony Abbott seems to think so too â and I suspect that heâs not alone in his total disbelief that the electorate might be about to dispense with the services of its rightful masters. Only the last Minister brave or foolhardy enough to say so in public.
Itâs intriguing to note that commentators this year have almost unanimously expressed surprise or puzzlement at the âitâs timeâ? factor in the polls. The electorate must be bored, or something, or weâd have seen the baseball bats. How can this be when the Dear Leader still retains public esteem?
The answer may lie in what the polls arenât asking.
Sydney Uni Politics Professor Rod Tiffen makes this case in an interesting piece in Australian Policy Online:
In the current election, the pollstersâ standard arsenal of questions has a particularly profound ring of irrelevance. None of the polls seems to give any insight into why such a crucially large section of the electorate seems to have turned its back on the government, and seems immune to all its blandishments. None of the questions they ask seems to capture key elements: whether there is an âitâs timeâ? factor, whether people no longer trust the government, whether people are simply sick of the key personalities. The pollsters do not seem capable of coming up with new questions or approaches that give a sense of the dynamics of the swing to Labor.
Tiffen argues that few of the questions asked properly relate shifts in public attitudes to voting intention, or measure how important particular issues might be. This goes a long way to explaining why weâve been treated to various numbers being anointed as âleading indicatorsâ? and shaky hypotheses built on the basis of irrelevant shifts and misunderstood historical parallels.
Elections, as George W. Bush famously said, are âaccountability momentsâ?.
By this stage of the game, there should be no surprises in why a lead on âeconomic managementâ? runs up against the reality of the lived economy. But I havenât seen any commentators attempt to explain why the âitâs timeâ? factor occurs â itâs not just âboredomâ? but itâs a way governments are finally held to account.
The increasing arrogance of the Howard government â exemplified by Mark Vaileâs recent shenanigans â should provide a clue. We may well be constantly told, in hectoring tones, by the commentariat that scandals like AWB, Children Overboard and Haneef are âelite issuesâ? for the âpolitical classâ?. But given that the Latham effect swamped Howardâs lousy record on âtrustâ? in 2004, it may well be the case that years of bluster, incompetence and a born to rule attitude are finally coming back to haunt the Coalition.
But youâd never know that from the polls â because theyâre asking the electorate the wrong questions.
Also posted at LP in Exile, where you can leave a comment while we put the finishing touches on our new home.
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