Tag Archive for 'leadership crisis'

Newspaper understands poll shock! And Costello breaks silence!

Props to Peter Hartcher at the Sydney Morning Herald for actually including some vaguely sensible commentary in his column on the Nielsen preferred Liberal leader polling, and not beating it up as “Voters Want Costello!”. Perhaps the Fairfax crew are trying to establish a point of differentiation in the market:

But even so, the poll does not suggest that a Costello leadership would be enough to put the Coalition ahead. “Superficially it looks good for Peter Costello,” Stirton observes, “but when you look at where his support comes from, it’s mainly Liberal voters.”

But to win an election, the Coalition needs to win over people currently supporting Labor. Asked whether a Costello leadership would make them more or less likely to vote for the Coalition, 15 per cent said more likely but 24 per cent said less. “Costello is a net negative among Labor voters,” Stirton points out.

More on the poll from The Poll Bludger and Possum Comitatus.

Meanwhile, the Great Man Pretender breaks his silence! … Continue reading ‘Newspaper understands poll shock! And Costello breaks silence!’

It’s the weekend so it must be Costellology time!

I forget who first compared the breathless expectation that the News Limited meejah and the Liberal party are indulging in over Peter Costello’s non-decision making to Kremlinology, but in the wake of the thousands of words wasted on idle speculation and the interpretation of signs from the Great Pretender last weekend, this weekend we get… thousands of words wasted, etc.

Hint to Liberals: Your problems are much deeper than leadership. You need to do a lot more in opposition than “defend the Howard record”, particularly when doing so ties you in knots so tangled that… well, consider Joe Hockey last night. You need to realise that if Costello becomes leader, he will have to display more “economic credibility” than “hey! wasn’t it the good old days when I was Treasurer?” - the configuration of economic issues is different and the world has moved on. And in the process your messiah has been reinforcing his reputation for indecision and indulging his enormous ego and sense of entitlement. And, guess what, if you change leadership, it won’t be the end of your leadership troubles.

Oh, and John Howard is unlikely to go away either. Continue reading ‘It’s the weekend so it must be Costellology time!’

No news is good News II

The supposition I had - shared by Lyn at Public Opinion - that even the diehard Milnes and Shanahans of News Limited might give up on their “Costello for Saviour” campaign in the absence of anything actually happening has been spectacularly shattered. Our Dennis - in perhaps the longest column he has ever written - piles speculation on top of speculation on top of speculation and - well, you get the picture. Labor is probably a oncer because this might happen if that happens and that might occur if this happens. Unbelievable.

No news is good news at News

What do you do if you’re a columnist for the Opposition Organ and nothing is actually happening in the Peter Costello Leadership Story? Write about Chrissy Pyne’s Facebook status updates as if they’re news, that’s what! Score one zero for the Liberals in the Web 2.0 politics sphere, I guess.

Liberal frontbencher and staunch Costello supporter Christopher Pyne used his Facebook site to kill the speculation, writing: “Christopher Pyne thinks Peter Costello’s position is clear and unchanged since November and wishes everyone would move on and get stuck into the ALP. Who arehopeless!”

Well, thanks for that, Dennis. Paul Keating probably killed off the Great Pretender for the time being more effectively, but I suppose it is hard to keep writing the same columns and stories about a quintessential non-event day after day. We’ll miss the comedy value. I imagine we’re about to see the switch flicked back to that other “media narrative” - “the Rudd honeymoon is over” now.