Philip Senior has an interesting piece in todays SMH on debates and the upcoming NSW “armchair discussion” between Peter Debnam and Morris Iemma. Later on he also has some advice for Peter Debnam to take into the big night.
The shorter version? Open a can of whup-ass on Iemma and drive that final batshit crazy nail into your political coffin.
Leaders’ debates are valuable additions to campaigns dominated by doorstop press conferences, media sound bites and 30-second advertisements. Overseas research and my research on federal election debates suggest they play an important information role, can influence voters’ perceptions of leaders and the issues and can exert a significant influence on voting, particularly for undecided or swinging voters and wavering partisans.
Like most LP readers I’ve been watching these kinds of debates for years, Canadian, American and Australian and while I think they do play some kind of role in framing public perceptions of the candidates, I also think most of these perceptions are based on the morning after media interpretation of “how well” a candidate did.
Let’s face it, based on past ratings of these events, most people would rather watch paint dry, and judging by the number of home improvement shows on television, most folks will take the paint option on Friday February 16th, as a result, Debnam and Iemma will be playing to the press gallery and opinion makers ability to respect them in the morning.
My advice to Debnam is to treat this one as a gimmie, and get your points across without too much aggro, it’s too far out and it’s impact will fade quickly because the voters are not focused on the atmospherics of an election just yet.
One other thing caught my eye in Senior’s piece.
Debnam must challenge Iemma on his Government’s record and make it clear if the Premier does not respond or fails to answer the moderator’s questions. He should seek to mix it up with Iemma, forcing off-the-cuff responses with the aim of exposing the soft underbelly one suspects lies beneath the smoothly packaged Iemma persona. Too much aggression may backfire, but Debnam has little to lose.
Soft underbelly? Where is the evidence of this? No doubt Iemma is packaged as all professional politicians are, but most of this has to do with his experience in Govt and as a minister in a difficult portfolio – since his elevation to Premier he’s shown nothing but a hard yet cool and relaxed outer shell as he’s managed to ease his Govt out of quite a few tricky political scenarios – based on the available evidence so far, if you roll the Iemma turtle over, all you get is another shell; this is the NSW right we’re talking about here, soft doesn’t get you very far.
Heh.
Nicely put, Phil.
He always seems to come across on tv as some sort of robot.
Glad you liked that bit.
Actually, he looks quite relaxed to me, not as folksy as Beattie and not Bracks either, somewhere in between.
Even after he called the Xcity tunnel guy a dickhead to Bracks he looked good managing the media argy bargy, and he was right in the end, from my lounge I see his political judgment as sound……….in contrast to Debnam.
I’m not quite sure about Senior’s PhD thesis, I think after the original televised Kennedy/Nixon debates a lot of this is overstated. But he’s the budding academic so I’ll have to trust his thesis.
It’s a bit hard to tell from Qld of course.
Re – Senior’s thesis – I don’t know how much you can extrapolate from the US (where they’re seriously big news) to Oz federal elections (where I think the evidence is mixed) to state elections – where they’re almost always unwatched and low profile. Even media and political types greeted the Beattie and Bracks debate with a big yawn. Would probably have only influenced the campaign if there’d been some sort of meltdown moment.
I guess in NSW the debate has novelty on its side though, with Carr having refused to participate in them.
Yep, that’s why there has been so much commentary on this in NSW, so maybe there is a hope the novelty will create some kind of trapeze without a net action by one of the two.
I might live blog it BTW, if I do I’ll have to create a drinking game for the evening. A shot every time one or the other mentions P-platers, or riots, that kind of thing……….
That sounds wise
I think you are way to easy on Iemma Phil. While he might have been handed some crap when he took over I don’t really think he’s done much to make you want to vote for him, and a bunch of stuff like delaying the road closures for the lane cove tunnel that makes him look piss weak.
Its Peter Debnam that’s going to win it for the ALP, and I think the ALP know this and are desperately trying to do nothing and coast over the line.
True Steve, but as the pulled quote suggests, only easy on him in contrast to Debnam, I’ve said elsewhere in previous posts that Labor deserves to go.
On the roads thing, I should point out that as a cyclist I disagreed with opening the roads closed to funnel traffic into the tunnel (we lost a bike lane on William St because of it), however recognising that motorists are the majority I thought cyclists shouldn’t get too worked up about it because there are bigger fish to fry and issues to consider.
In that case, here’s a list that should leave the entire blogocracy horizontal for a few days after:
* Hoons/hooligans/thugs,
* Family-friendly policy/ies (OK, too much Bad Eggs on my part),
* Law and Order,
* The ‘ethnic’ problem/’ethnic’ gangs
* P-Platers (remember, ‘P-plate hoons’ gets double),
* Greater Sydney (guaranteed to have you shickered in 5 minutes),
* Transport nightmeres/fiascos/bungles, and
* “Never been west of Leichhardt”.
OK bloggers, get your case of non-brand-specific hard liquor ordered early…
And a double shot if anyone mentions Brogden or Okopolous because that would be a very courageous play!
I know that ‘never been west of…” sorta covers it, but how about ‘Member for Vaucluse’.?
OK then, DJ, double shot for “Member of Vaucluse, Shadow Minister for Western Sydney”.
As for your suggestions, Angharad, while I don’t think that Yeah-Ma would bother mentioning Broggers (having been gone for quite some time, it’s just not worth wasting breath or time), I wouldn’t put it past Debnam to have a brain fart and cut sick on the Orkopoulos matter – especially if he feels that Quentin’s giving him a rough time on moderation and attempts to drop a megatonne rant to get the upper hand in the debate.
I’d be off my nut before the first speaker’s time-nearly-up warning!
This is not a bad thing…
phil,
i know this local schmokel stuff, but i checked with a women who has known all the local mp’s, mayors and assorted hanger-ons for multiple decades….. in her late 70′s and most pollies can’t away from her without having committed $10K to some local cause or what not. formidable..anyway, she said peter was very nice, always comes over to say hello etc, but her opinion – “bit of a dill”. she said he came to a chamber of commerce meeting and his speech – everyone was rolling their eyes…also his electorate office was pretty poor in responding – either didnt, or just sent lame replies – so she sends stuff to the state mp in the next electorate who responds and sends onto ministers etc. (malcolm’s office is apparently very well run, as was peter king’s.)
dont what this means in practice when you are Opp. Leader with minders/pr/speechwriters etc, but i’ll go with the “bit of a dill”, until i hear anything different.
Interesting local perspective Jo, I’m just looking for Debnam to make a difference. It’s not good for the state if we don’t have an effective opposition.
Honestly I wouldn’t be this narky about the Libs if Barry O’Farrell was the leader, every time he makes a public statement he sounds sane and in control, the contrast is obvious. And you get the impression that he’d be able to keep the nuttier members of the Libs away from the knives and forks in the Parlt House dining room.
Drinking game: everytime Debnam says “the Iemma-Costa government” which is their branding quote to bring the unpopular treasurer into it.
Or Carr-Iemma Amanda, that one always gets a run on the six-o-clocks.
I always had the impression that this was because Iemma’s so terrible at actually responding or debating off the cuff that he wraps himself up in a total script scenario. He gets flustered if he doesn’t know exactly what’s going to happen – I keep remembering his first few press conferences as Premier, when he failed to keep his cool under the press gang’s pressure and was a total PR dud until his minders started drilling him with key phrases to say when he became nervous.
I kind of agree with Senior on that one point – it wouldn’t be a bad move for Debnam to push Iemma into some off-the-cuff stuff. Mind you, I have the feeling that if Debnam were pushed the same way, he’d expose himself further as a fool.
agree phil, pete’s the default leader. clark knows his mob are just too horrible to be seen in the daylight….and not enough votes left anymore, to roll clark.
i’m still stuck in the broggers-meltdown. he would have been well on his way to premier by now….
barry o’farrell – would be leader if it was the alp. they might be standing around in long robes holding upside crosses, but they aren’t stupid.
Piers Ackerman refers to the Carr-Iemma Government almost as often as Gerard Henderson uses “threw the switch to hyperbole.”
Hey! I forgot, there’s still a National Party in NSW and Andrew Stoner want to debate Iemma.
Iemma replies.
The member for Vaucluse………………..where is my shot glass?
Stick with that Jo, confirmed today by a colleague who used to work for him a few years ago.
Don’t do it Morris. Stoner is way more formidable than Debbie.
I was at a Debbie press conference recently, journos asking questions about a certain controversial piece of legislation the Oppn were throwing up, D. just kept repeating his soundbites for the evening news, says the details will wait and clearly had no idea of the history, precedents etc. Conf ends, in comes Stoner to have a go about water policy. While they’re setting up for him, he spontaneously gives the journos all the detail they want about it, simple and clear. Sheesh. I wondered at the time if he was narked he had to do his leader’s job for him (and off camera too.)