Of particular interest are her comments on the contrast made between Kevin Rudd’s allegedly autocratic style of governance, and Gillard’s putative consensus approach. This also goes to the question of the reaction to the overthrow of a first term PM, and the reasons why the manner of her installation is problematic for many.

There’s lots to talk about here, but I want to focus on the question of presidential style politics.

As I said in the comments thread at Hoyden, one interesting point in terms of tigtog’s argument about the quasi-presidential system is the way Julia Gillard has gone about distancing herself and the government from Kevin Rudd. Her manner of proceeding, and the way it’s been framed, has been precisely aimed to suggest that a new leader implies a new policy direction, and to gloss over the continuities with ALP policy under Rudd which tigtog identifies (although I do think it’s significant that the rhetoric has moved rightwards so quickly). The (quickly shattered) expectations among people that policy would shift in areas like same sex marriage and the net filter also fit neatly into the presidential box.

I also think the Timor kerfuffle demonstrates that “consultative” leadership is not the panacea that many claimed it was. We can see that from the fact that the decision was obviously taken quickly, the ground not prepared, and dominated by conceptions of political strategy and spin (as with her remarks about so-called political correctness). Waiting for a “consensus” to emerge on climate change is also a recipe for inaction in the short term and disaster in the long term.

We’re also witnessing a meme emerge that it’s difficult to judge Gillard’s actions on the basis of her rhetoric, given that she will have been PM for only a short period of time before we vote. This is to ignore the fact that governance, these days, largely proceeds in train with politics, and that the public articulation and framing of policy issues is absolutely key to what then occurs. This view has the effect of focusing our attention, as we decide how to vote, more on Gillard’s personality than what the actual record of the government in which she has been a crucial player for almost three years is, and thus reinforces both the presidential “new slate” and persona driven themes. It also tends to exempt Gillard from legitimate criticism.

I think there was an element of wishful thinking in the belief by some that the ascension of a PM from Labor’s left might see an about turn on precisely the issues that many have problems with in Labor’s policy record. Similarly, I think it’s unlikely that a re-elected Gillard government would suddenly reverse course on the key areas she’s identified as needing to be “fixed” – tax, asylum seekers and climate change. I think it’s much more likely that she would proceed as she’s begun.

This goes to the concentration on personality politics which bedevils a presidential style of governance. At a structural level, Guy Rundle is right to say that Labor’s left is effectively dead. Tigtog is also right to say that Kevin Rudd’s not being a traditional Labor figure was part of his strength, and one of the reasons we had a lot invested in him, as well as a large part of the ostensible reason for his political demise. Here we are not talking about ‘Saint Kevin’, as some would have it, but about the fact that late modern Labor is not fit for purpose, if the purpose is to advance a progressive politics.

By buying into fantasies about a revival of a progressive politics under a new leader working within the same old party structure, and advised by the same old focus group and poll obsessed apparat, we’re stuck in exactly the same paradigm where politics becomes all about individuals and not about much broader trends. That’s where, paradoxically, I think a broader form of democratic input into the selection of party leaders could shift things.

British Labour has seen 30 000 new party members join since the defeat of the Brown government. That’s remarkable for a party which was viewed as exhausted by a long term in power, and which was said to have run out of ideas and impetus. It’s by no means a perfect exemplar of participatory democracy, or public reasoning, but the Labour leadership contest has enabled a real refocusing on what the party stands for. That’s what we do not get in Australia with a change of leadership, or after election defeats. If we were to discuss, and deliberate on where progressive politics should go, and how to revive the progressive impulse, instead of projecting fantasies on leaders past and present, then I think we’d be better off.

Image of spontaneous street celebrations in Harlem courtesy of matt semel at flickr – reproduced under a Creative Commons licence.

No doubt one of the big stories about the US election will be the influence of the blogosphere and the netroots. In many ways, the rise of the intertubes in politics was an unintended consequence of the Rove approach to politics, as Publius perceives:

The bigger story is that this same anger – this same frustration – has led liberals to organize in more numerous and consequential ways. In the last few years, we’ve seen new think tanks. We’ve seen blogs flower. We’ve seen the rise of media sites like TPM and Huffington with real journalistic chops. We’ve seen unprecedented efforts to register and canvass voters.

In short, we’ve seen a new energy driving liberals back to politics.

In an opinion piece at ABC Online, Barry Saunders sums up the changes that net based activism and citizen journalism have wrought:

The impact of social media on this election has been enormous. Whoever takes office will have to deal with widely available factchecking data, embarrassing videos, rabid wingnuts, opinionated bloggers and TV hosts, and a massive number of new voters and donors who feel they have invested in the American political process – as well as two wars and a collapsing economy. Here’s hoping they know what they’re doing.

John Quiggin writes of the “end of the first age of the blogosphere”:

Once the initial euphoria dissipates, and the inevitable mistakes, failures and compromises/sellouts begin to emerge, it’s necessary to strike a balance between criticising what’s being done wrong and reminding yourself how much worse the other side was and would be again. The attitude of constructive critical support is a hard one to maintain, especially given the habits built up over years in opposition.

We’ve already had a look at Michael Bérubé’s thoughts here at LP:

But perhaps the left blogosphere could be of some use in this regard, no? It needn’t be consolidated fully into Obama Enterprises Inc.; it could serve instead as a forum for writers dedicated to things like “hope” and “change” and “arguing that Obama was wrong to cave on FISA and better not do that kind of thing as President.” Of course, it could also serve as a forum for charting and mocking all manner of Ace-of-Confederate-Red-State-Yankeespade wingnuts as they venture into new realms of sheer barking lunacy that even the world’s sheerest barkingest lunatics have hitherto been unable to imagine. That might be fun. And it could do “shorters” and cat blogging and Theory Tuesdays and Friday Random Tens too. It’s a blogosphere. It’s a big place, with many many tubes.

And Possum makes some sharp points comparing the media/punditsphere and online social media:

Data beat punditry, statistics beat navel gazing, demographic analysis beat wishful thinking.

The intertubes were 3 hours ahead of the network coverage, Dick Morris should never show his face in public again if he had an ounce of integrity, and, most importantly, this has been a demonstration that sometimes things dont happen in the same tired old ways they always have before.

There’s one point I’d like to add to all this analysis.

Going back as early as 1976, commentary about US elections focused on the decline in voter involvement and its eclipse by top-down media strategies. We’ve seen a massive revival in citizen participation and activism, something that was recognised by Barack Obama in his victory speech. The future of this re-engagement will be dependent on how Obama governs, but as he correctly says, it will also be dependent on the preparedness of citizens to continue to act publicly and collectively.

All technology is shaped socially. Blogging, YouTube, and other social media have been enablers and not just causes of this invigoration of democracy. I’d like to see some research and analysis focused on the wellsprings of activism we’ve seen bubbling up. I think that would be, in many ways, a more productive frame through which to look at what’s interesting, distinctive and exciting about this campaign than yet another round of “journos v. bloggers” style articles.

Elsewhere: An interesting post from Terry Flew on the role of satire in the campaign, and some suggestions for future analyses of the results.