The view from Channel Nine VII
Continuing an irregular series commenting on how the election looks to commercial tv viewers: commercial free to air is the biggest single source of information for voters. Channel Nine led today with a local protest by fisherfolk “venting their fury” [...]
Julia Gillard fights back against Downer and the Liberal chattering classes
[Thanks to Lefty E in comments for the link to the Prime Minister going on the front foot at a press conference in Perth this afternoon.]
Balance?
I’m not sure how this one slipped through: What the longevity of almost all state and territory governments suggests is that it is difficult for an opposition to come to power except through the electorate’s view that it is time [...]
Nats wiped out in Lyne, big swing against Libs in Mayo
Interesting stuff happening in the two federal by-elections tonight. It’s all over red rover for the Nats candidate in Mark Vaile’s old seat of Lyne, Rob Drew, who’s on about 22% of the primary vote – a swing against the [...]
It was Newspoll wot lost it
You can really understand the force of the phrase âpolitical tragicâ? when you reflect on how many Australians would have wanted to spend the weekend before Christmas reading Glenn Milneâs thoughts on the Rudd cabinet, or the weekend before New [...]
Ain’t gonna study (culture) war no more…
If even Geoffrey Blainey’s upset with John Howard, you know the PM can’t be having a good week (or year, for that matter). The eminent historian has expressed concern about Howard’s personal intervention in the awarding of a history prize [...]
Born to rule?
Imre Salusinszky wrote yesterday (not online but discussed in this post at PollieGraph): … the Coalition started the campaign down a hole and now looks as if it is asking people to vote for an old-age pensioner and the cast [...]
Downing Street Memo II
A few weeks ago, on September 26, the Spanish daily newspaper El Pais published the transcript of a meeting between then Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar and US President George W Bush in Texas on February 22, 2003 — [...]
Opposing the death penalty = political death?
There’s nothing in Robert McClelland’s speech about the death penalty in Asia that I would disagree with. Surely a country like Australia which has outlawed the death penalty at home cannot in good conscience support it elsewhere – that looks [...]
Burma toll "worse than feared"
According to Alexander Downer, Australian diplomats think the death toll from the military crackdown on the Burmese protests is “much higher than has been reported so far, and could be in the hundreds.” One thing I find rather perplexing about [...]
Do the polls support the political narrative? Or; how to build a commentariat-bot
By Mark Bahnisch on February 15, 2010
I’ve previously highlighted Dennis Shanahan and Malcolm Colless as barometers of the new new political narrative (‘Rudd in trouble! Gloss comes off! Action Man Tony Off To Vigorous Start!’). Michelle Grattan provided another twist on the mechanics of constructing such [...]
Posted in Federal Elections, Media, Polls | Tagged Alexander Downer, Anna Bligh, commentariat, Courier-Mail, Dennis Shanahan, Federal Election 2010, Galaxy poll, Kevin Rudd, Malcolm Colless, Media, Michelle Grattan, political narrative, poll, polling, possum, public opinion, Queensland, Rudd government, stephanie balogh, Tony Abbott | 69 Responses