Like many other political junkies I’ve been keeping a close eye on the primaries in the US at the moment. Not surprisingly, like many others of the leftish persuasion I’ve been more than a little transfixed by the battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. So far the Democratic primaries have been a war of framing, code words, and message control that makes Kevin07’s campaign look terribly amateur.
Standard disclaimer: I like both of the candidates. I’m a fan of both of their skills and their policy positions. I think both of them have a more than decent shot at winning the general election, I also think that both would probably end up as pretty good presidents.
Now that’s done I can be honest and say that I really hope Obama wins.
Continue reading ‘Hope and change versus experience’
A quick survey of today’s broadsheets reveals that the Liberal Party dirt unit has been working overtime and is coming up with zilch.
Apparently 13 ALP candidates are still listed as employed on government websites. So they MUST HAVE BROKEN THE LAW, you know, because government websites are renowned for being up to date. Oh, and the Liberal Party is waiting for the ALP to produce evidence that no crimes were committed before they will refer it to the AEC. I’m not really sure on what planet that makes sense.
Even worse than that, a staffer of George Newhouse is anti Semitic Zionist, which is a crime against humanity or something. Especially when the Jew hating pinko ALP staffer’s boss is Jewish and his father was a Zionist.
Finally Tony Abbott is given a free pass in the SMH to have another go at running his “Are all you voters are so dumb that you don’t realize that we are the greatest thing that ever happened to you?” argument. Though, I don’t care about that one so much because every time Abbott tries to communicate he offends about three-quarters of the population.
Seriously, is this all they’ve got? Where’s the sex, drugs, and scandal? Frankly, I just don’t think that their hearts are in it anymore.
Cross-posted at LP in Exile where you can make comments while we wait for all the bugs to be ironed out of our new site.
… is going to have to learn to deal with reality should the ALP win this election.
In today’s GG the Shamaham breathlessly announces that the latest Newspoll survey of the marginal electorates demonstrates that Howard has “fought back in key marginal seats”. Well, that is if you squint really hard, hold your breath, jump up and down on one foot while tilting your head in just the right way.
Thankfully someone at the GG thought it best not to just rely on the Shamaham’s analysis this time, so there’s also a much more sober article from Sol Lebovic. Sol’s take is that the Libs are pretty much screwed, but there’s a slightly smaller swing against the Libs in some marginals in NSW than elsewhere, or something like that anyway.
As ever with this campaign, I’d suggest you hit the blogosphere if you don’t want to risk getting drawn in by the Shamaham’s poll madness. The Poll Bludger has already jumped in and picked apart the figures for this survey.
P.S. Apparently the ABC is buying whatever it is that Dennis is selling.
I was beginning to think that this campaign couldn’t get any more dull, then Peter Costello decided to bring the boring by the truckload.
Apparently Peter Costello and Wayne Swan are going to have a stoush on live TV over their ability to remember lots of important sounding numbers with decimal points in them, or to speak pseudo-econo language in an authoritive and reassuring tone, or whatever it is that Treasurers are supposed to be good at (any takers for “white-anting” the party leader?). What’s more, the ABC and Channel Nine are so hard up for ratings that they are going to broadcast it.
I understand that the economy is important and that a lot of people vote with their hip-pockets in mind. But come on, the electorate is sick to death of this damned campaign and the whole “I’m a great debater” game will be so old in a weeks time. I’m a political tragic that fancies a bit of math and genuinely enjoys chatting to folk about economics and even I think that this is going to be painful to watch.
Continue reading ‘Costello begs for a chance to bore the nation to death’
US politics may never be the same.
He has been a mainstay of the political reality through much of the Bush era. Indeed, for many, he epitomizes this reality. His support base has exploded with the emergence of Web 2.0 politics. I guess it’s always been on the cards, but with the recent release of his book and his hitting of the US talk-show circuit it seemed more and more likely that he may run in 2008. Finally, on his own TV show, he ended months of speculation, by announcing his candidacy for the Presidency of the United States.
That’s right people, Stephen Colbert is running for President.
Continue reading ‘The biggest news story of the week’
It’s fair to say that John Howard’s Indigenous referendum plan knocked me off my feet. I suspect that this is pretty much what it was supposed to do. My first instinct was to scour Howard’s speech to find the catch. However, I came away thinking that his referendum is a genuinely good idea.
My next reaction was to ask why the ALP didn’t beat Howard to the punch? In light of Rudd’s ridiculous decision not to enthusiastically support Robert McClelland earlier in the week I got to thinking about how badly Kevin Rudd has let down the progressive left. It was a classic example of Rudd’s instinctive reaction to drift to the right whenever he is thrown a flipper. This instinct gives often leaves me with the impression his vision for Australia is simply John Howard’s Australia with Kevin Rudd as PM.
Yet, and here’s the weird thing, if Rudd’s campaigning style hadn’t forced Howard into the political fight of his life then John Howard wouldn’t be talking about the need for reconciliation with Indigenous Australians. As was pointed out yesterday in an excellent piece by Possum, John Howard’s vote bleeding has forced him to pander to the Liberal heartland, the so-called “doctor’s wives”.
Continue reading ‘Manufacturing me-tooism’
The Australian election just became interesting.
In today’s GG Janet Albrechtsen has called for John Howard to step aside in order to let Peter Costello lead the coalition into the election campaign.
Mull over that for a few seconds.
Albrechtsen has always been one of Howard’s biggest fans. Just look at this gushing prose:
Under Howard it became cool to be a conservative.
(Middle-aged newspaper columnists are, of course, renowned for the accuracy of their cool-o-meters.)
Janet is arguing that for the Coalition to get a handle on Kevin07 they must ditch Howard for the “young and fresh” Costello. Albrechtsen’s column follows from Paul Kelly’s less-than-subtle hints on Wednesday that the Coalition was in need of generational change. In yesterday’s Crikey Christian Kerr suggested that Howard has received, or is about to, get the “tap on the shoulder” for the good of his party.
Continue reading ‘Albrechtsen wants to try “the switch”!’
The Rugby World Cup kicks off on Friday and I’m super-excited. For the first time in quite a while it looks like there are a whole bunch of teams in the mix to win this year’s cup.
It’s no secret that the New Zealanders are the favourites to walk away with the cup this year and France, being the hosts, also have good odds. After the top two, by my reckoning at least, there are a host of teams that could win the title given slightly more luck. These teams include (in no particular order): Australia, South Africa, England, Wales, Argentina, and Ireland. All of these teams either have shown good form this year, are known to step up in big games (like England, those bastards!) or have almost pulled off big upsets in the last year or so (like Argentina).
Personally though, I’m backing Fiji because the longer they stay in the competition the more chances I’ll have to wear a sulu to the pub… Continue reading ‘Who else is getting excited about the Rugby World Cup?’
What a great way to bring up your half century. Peter Costello spent today denying accusations that he boasted to a table full of senior political reporters in early 2005 that he would have a tilt at John Howard by April 2006 if he didn’t voluntarily step aside. Apparently back then Costello didn’t think that Howard could get the Coalition over the line at another election.
I guess we’ve learnt three things from all this:
- Peter Costello is great for smack talk - I reckon he’d be a great one at a BBQ or dinner party.
- He doesn’t have the guts to ‘fess up to something that is almost certainly true and which is not a surprise to anyone.
- His political radar isn’t that bad because if they keep going on like this the Coalition sure as hell won’t win the next election.
Update: Apparently Wilson Tuckey also wants Howard out of the way. I’m guessing he also wishes he knew how to use a fax machine. In all seriousness, why are these guys still using fax machines to send extremely sensitive correspondence?
Remember a week or so ago when the Liberal Party was alleging that the ACTU was running an illegal political campaign? In what is surely going to come as a massive surprise to everyone, the Australian Electoral Commission has cleared the ACTU and the Labor Party of any wrongdoing.
Could it be that the government was just “playing politics” by referring the ACTU to the AEC?
Coming to an election campaign near you: If the ALP win, TeH EVIL unions will eat your firstborn (or something along those lines anyway).
With all the debate on Australia’s approach to climate change in the last few weeks it is interesting to note how irrelevant this debate will be if Angela Merkel and Tony Blair are on their game at the G8 meeting in Heiligendamm this week.
Both Blair and Merkel have been pushing behind the scenes for some time now for a G8 agreement on setting firm greenhouse gas emmission targets. It was reassuring to wake up this morning here in Austria and to hear Blair on the radio and on message. He has pushed Bush into a position where he is willing to admit that climate change is real and that it is caused by greenhouse gas emmissions, now Blair and Merkel face the real challenge of getting the US and China to both firmly agree on a strategy to address climate change.
Unfortunately, the US missile defence shield issue has dominated headlines in the last few days and threatens to derail the whole meeting. However, this is Tony Blair’s last G8 meeting and it will be his last chance to build a consensus on one of his signature issues. Hopefully he has been at the G8 table enough times now to be able to cut through Bush and Putin’s grandstanding and achieve a worthwhile agreement.
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