Rudd’s silence could resonate with those embattled backbenchers whose future is being threatened by the clubs’ campaign. They are increasingly fearful for their seats and resentful of not only the legislation that Wilkie has forced on Labor, but that the government itself is being held hostage by him.

The argument could run: install Rudd in the leadership early next year and have an election before the pokies legislation comes to a crunch. Few would think the government itself would be saved but quite a number might believe their own seats could be.

Yes, the pokies lobby is whinging mightily. Yes, the government is unpopular at the moment. But the publicly-available evidence suggests the two are largely unrelated.

As Bernard Keane (H/T Kim in comments on an earlier story) points out at Crikey, the publicly-available polling on the matter suggests that pokie reform is actually pretty damn popular. Essential Report’s most recent polls show that around two-thirds of voters support the precommitment legislation.

However, just because a policy is broadly popular, doesn’t mean it’s electorally advantageous. I suppose it’s possible that in some NSW and Queensland seats, particularly, the threat to having one’s weekly massive slab of rump steak paid for by gambling addicts is resonating more powerfully.

But is there any actual evidence for this proposition, or is it just more noise from a congenitally cowardly backbench confusing colour and movement from the clubs for actual effect?

I can’t help wondering what position Labor would be in now if Rudd had called a double dissolution election on the back of the CPRS a couple of years ago. But you can’t undo history.

Still, it’s two years until the next election. Assuming there no by-election in a Labor or crossbench seat, the CEF bills will pass the parliament. The scheme will be enacted. The sky will not fall in. And, even if they still lose, history suggests it’s unlikely to be anything like the wipeout predicted by these polls. But that relies on Labor holding its nerve, for once. And, on past history, let’s not bet on that, either.

On the ABC’s latest figures, the Tasmanian vote split is 37.1/39.1/21.3 for Labor, the Liberals and The Greens respectively, with a 10-10-5 allocation of seats predicted. It’s interesting, in passing, to observe that The Greens didn’t come anywhere near as close to Labor’s vote as polls might have indicated, though nevertheless scoring a handy swing of 4.6%. The swing against Labor in Tasmania was -12.1%, compared to -7.4% in South Australia, where the great majority of the swing has gone straight to the Liberals, with only a small increase in The Greens’ vote of 1.6%.

I’m going to be very interested to see whether those members of the commentariat who were proclaiming that a Labor loss in one or both states would spell doom for Rudd, further embolden Abbott, and claiming that “state results have federal implications and feed into the psychological battle in Canberra” will now rewrite their scripts for tomorrow’s papers.

In truth, there is very little point pouring over state tea leaves to concoct a federal brew.

The first term Rudd government is at a very different stage of the electoral cycle than the state administrations, and the range and scope of issues quite distinct. Those seeking to weave a narrative of Labor decline based on state results should pause and reflect that there is great particularity to each state’s political culture and history, before we even get to the fact that historically there is little correlation between election results at Commonwealth and state levels.

The only real point of interest, because it will involve many of the same players and techniques, is the performance of the campaigns. SA Labor obviously ran a well targeted marginal seat effort, so a move in the statewide vote could be contained to seats where it didn’t count. The political dynamics of the Tasmanian contest are very different, driven by its unique electoral system, but the ALP campaign appears, from a distance, to have been both ineffectual and unprincipled.

So, to the degree that there are lessons to be learned, Labor, the Liberals and The Greens will be seeking to understand what the campaigns’ implications are for the mechanics and technics of the federal contest.

Incidentally, speaking of observing at a distance, I wasn’t surprised to see Christopher Pearson coming closest of any of the commentators to picking the SA result. I’ll never forget Peter Van Onselen writing just before last year’s Queensland election of ‘many marginal Labor seats in South-West Queensland’. My belief that local and historical knowledge is crucial to electoral commentary led me to decline a kind invitation from Crikey to join in the conversation on these elections. I think it’s worth remembering that principle when evaluating the worth of comment on politics in our very large, variegated and complex continent.

Elsewhere: John Quiggin:

Given the extent to which Abbott’s bogus “authenticity” campaign relies on momentum, this could be a big problem for him. Or maybe not. Despite the Libs pre-election spin, tonights votes had very little to do with Federal politics, and rightly so.

Trevor Cook:

People who get excited about the News Ltd / Newspoll excitement about the so-called Abbott rise ought to see this as a reality check.

Rudd’s political style, whether his prolixity or his obsession for control, was always destined to be viewed more harshly when the politics became tougher.

Eventually it might work, but it’s not so far, because Abbott, blemished as he might be, is seen as ”authentic”, just as people are starting to ask ”will the real Kevin stand up?”…

But the dynamics have changed, the government is worried and the public, for the moment, seem to be hoping the underdog makes it a contest.

There’s lots, lots, more, and in fact the whole piece is something of a mind dump rather than a considered analysis. But what’s worth highlighting is the elision between “the public” (referenced anecdotally), the polls (alluded to) and “people”. The story is largely written in the passive voice beloved of such authoritative pronouncements – stuff just happens, and it’s unclear who thinks that it has, and who has been doing the doing. Who is doing the viewing of Rudd in the para I’ve excerpted? What is this destiny?

What it really adds up to is a picture of the commentariat-bot at work.

Not everyone is as artless as Alexander Downer, claiming to detect a sea-change in public opinion on the basis of random airport encounters, quickly morphed into “people think”, and “people say”, but the underlying illogic is the same. Public opinion has changed because the commentariat says it has. The absence of much hard data, or even reference to such data as exists, only serves to highlight the constructedness of the narrative.

For a corrective, one might try Possum.

How popular is Kevin Rudd? It’s the question on the tips of the lips of political commentators everywhere. The exciting answer is that he’s on the nose, he’s doomed, the honeymoon is over, his popularity is plunging to new lows – add exclamation marks for effect.

But the boring – boring and correct – answer is, “about as popular as he was last time there was an Opposition leadership change”.

And on the federal polling from the same Galaxy sample as the horror poll for Anna Bligh, headlined as “Coalition surges to poll lead” by the Courier-Mail:

Effectively, these polls suggest a net loss to Rudd of 1 seat in Qld at the moment compared to the 2007 election results applied to the new electoral boundaries.

Compare that to Stephanie Balogh’s story:

SUPPORT for Kevin Rudd in his home state has crashed as Tony Abbott’s new-look Coalition powers ahead of Labor for the first time since the 2007 federal election.

Wallace, in her review, describes the Kent book, The Making of Julia Gillard, as a “political quickie”. I’ve read it, and that’s fair comment, though Kent does cast a fair bit of light on aspects of Gillard’s rise through Labor ranks which are not well known, such as the effects of her long term rivalry with Lindsay Tanner and Kim Carr.

In his defence, Naparstek points to a similar review by Michelle Grattan.

However, Michelle Grattan has not written a book which is in direct commercial competition with one she is reviewing.

Naparstek also claims Wallace is best qualified to review Kent’s book – by virtue of being the author of a rival biography of Gillard. Bizarre.

There’s a fair bit of obfuscation in Naparstek’s defence of his editorial decision. Whether or not Dr Sally Warhaft, a former editor of The Monthly, is a friend of Kent’s (and in the public realm, the fact that she was somehow involved in launching Kent’s book can’t be taken as evidence of that) seems to me to be entirely irrelevant, and to only serve to revive the pointless and inward looking arguments about the ramifications of her relationship with Robert Manne as chair of the magazine’s editorial board. It’s unwise, I’d have thought, to even give this sort of thing the remotest airing in public. And particularly unwise for Manne himself to appear to be the one conjuring this spectre. It’s only going to reinforce the (reasonable) perception that the affairs of The Monthly are still driven by impenetrable circle jerk arguments of no interest or relevance to its readers.

The last thing anyone wants to read is another 3000 word treatise on who said what to whom in some Melbourne restaurant. It’s about as interesting as an email exchange between Gerard Henderson and Robert Manne.

Leaving that looming potential pr disaster aside, how difficult is it actually to understand that Wallace doesn’t get a free pass for trashing a book in direct competition with her own by disclosing that she’s writing one?

To frame this as a “biography war” surely only draws attention to the ethical vacuity behind the decision to commission Wallace’s review in the first place. It’s pretty much an admission that what is really going on is trolling for a controversy, and that – as with all the other “wars” – the putative subject of the interchange will be lost in the fog at the moment of its declaration. This silliness should not be allowed to obscure the basic fact of the elicitation of a blatant conflict of interest by The Monthly. It’s as simple as that.

Elsewhere: Andrew Crook in Crikey.

Update: Andrew Norton writes:

While editors do need to exercise judgment about what impact apparent conflicts of interest will have on a review, avoiding them entirely is very difficult.

Perhaps, but that’s not an argument in my view, for not leaning over backwards to avoid conflicts. Norton appears to give some solace to Naparstek in his claim that Wallace was somehow uniquely qualified to review Kent’s work by virtue of being in the process of writing her own (rival) book. That seems to me to be an entirely spurious claim, because any purported expertise Wallace might bring to the scrutiny of Kent’s work could not – in the eyes of any reasonable reader – avoid the trap of being vitiated by their opposing commercial interests.

When have news journos derived their copy off bloggers?

Some people think that the answer is… quite often. I’m with them. Consider this passage here at LP – posted by Mark on Saturday, about the negotiating stances of the government and The Greens and Steve Fielding on the stimulus package’s Senate passage:

I suspect that this manoeuvring might factor more into what comes out of the Budget sausage machine. The government has clearly been shifting its rhetoric on the unemployed, and I would expect the minors to be told that people on benefits will benefit as a result of the Henry Review. So it may be that some commitments might be made for future measures in exchange for current support. That would still, however, give the minor party Senators a real chance to shape the response to the economic downturn.

Then consider this from Michelle Grattan on the same topic, posted on the SMH website last night:

It is also clear the Government will have to review the level of the dole when it looks at pensions in the budget. It is inconceivable it could give pensioners a hefty increase but do nothing for the jobless.

The Government has locked itself into action on pensions so it might as well do the same on the dole.

Coincidence? Great minds? Picking up the phone? Some other explanation? You be the judge…

Henry’s testimony led to a most unedifying spectacle where Malcolm Turnbull failed pathetically to dig himself out of his hole on the 7 30 Report. It was – quite seriously – one of the most appalling interviews I’ve seen a political leader give.

Michelle Grattan claims, in a column that – among other things – recites some of Turnbull’s own talking points, that the opposition leader suffers from “periodic bad judgement”. I’d like to ask – quite seriously – if someone can instance for me an example of Malcolm Turnbull exercising good judgement. When are the media going to realise that Turnbull’s not the Messiah, just another arrogant barrister with an inflated ego?

Update: If anyone was wondering about Dennis Shanahan’s “we were right!” stuff in today’s Australian, Bernard Keane puts it to the test and gives it the epic fail.