In an effort to keep the previous thread at least partly on topic, I hereby open a new one for purposes of general chatter. Perhaps you might like to take a shot at guessing Tuesday’s Newspoll result, which seems to be an increasingly popular parlour game among the leisured classes. Ever so much water has passed under the bridge since the 56-44 result of last fortnight: an interest rate increase, a new round of Liberal leadership tension and last week’s stock market dive. Newspoll is conducted from Friday through to Sunday, so Kevin Rudd’s New York misadventure is unlikely to be much of a factor.
Should point out the ABC was referring to tomorrow’s Newspoll. Rudd increased lead as preferred PM, “virtually unchanged” ALP lead. No figures were quoted yet.
ALP 53- 47 just to be different
i’ll go with 55-45
I also admire Cerdic Conan’s eccentric sense of humour on this blog. What’s happened to him lately?
Kiwipundit, he’s in rehab with a number of other trolls.
The string of bad polls and the overwhelming responsibility thrust on their sholders to keep the conservative fires burning on the “blogosphere” has taken its toll.
Good news on Newspoll from ABC then. BTW, how do you do facial expressions here?
No move in TPP, slight movement down in primary (1%) and Rudd as PPM up 3%.
News Limited also laboured (pun) the Sunrisegate non-story.
From the UK from one of the most Conservative papers, which I think is owned by Unca Rupert.
[ONE of Britain’s leading conservative newspapers has sprung to the defence of Australian Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd over his controversial visit to a New York strip club.
The Daily Telegraph said that while it must have been embarrassing for Rudd to admit he went to Manhattan’s Scores gentlemen’s club three years ago, he had nothing to be ashamed of.
“… any visitor to a foreign city wants to see the sights, and for someone from a country as rich in heritage as Australia, the Big Apple has little to offer,” the newspaper’s editorial column said.
“The striptease, which was invented there, is one of its major cultural attractions, and should not be missed.
“Besides, Mr Rudd went to the club as a guest of a local newspaper editor, whom it would have been rude to refuse.”]
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,22277145-5005361,00.html
Hawke was “a long way from being on the nose”, Scorpio? You really think so? Sorry, old son – only a quarter of the electorate approved of the job he was doing! Hewson had him on the ropes so the ALP threw him out with the rest of the garbage, and that’s the absolute truth. And now? Most people can only cringe when they see him scuttling about with Blanche in tow.
Bubbles, what exactly did Hawke do? Swiped some reform ideas from the Campbell report and managed to send the country into recession with his partner-in-crime Keating. That’s about it.
Meanwhile, a fun interview with Rudd on Today Tonight half an hour ago. It started pleasantly enough, with some light joshing about Strippergate; then Anna Coren ambushed him by pointing out that he’d also said he couldn’t remember anything about his meetings with Burke and wondered whether he often suffered from such blackouts. Well, his demeanour completely changed – he stopped smiling, looked distinctly uncomfortable, ummed and ahhed and avoided her question. He never recovered. I now have newfound respect for Ms Coren.
Howard must be absolutely spewing. Not to mantion Hyacynth.
Rudd is way up there in the bright lights getting priceless publicity and attention and he is the forgotten old has-been left to try and plunder whatever attention he can get through more and more desperate stunts which don’t work any more.
Oh, sorry, they were only my guesses. I went to answer the phone and must have hit enter on the way past.
Steven Kaye Says:
” I now have newfound respect for Ms Coren. ”
I saw the same interview. You’re easily pleased.
Steven Kaye Spewed:
[I now have newfound respect for Ms Coren.]
Today Tonight is cheap and nasty Television – just like youir talking points which are not backed up by links to same.
Steven Kaye Says:
†I now have newfound respect for Ms Coren. â€
I love it. Today Tonight finally found a way to sneak in a political interview – do one with tits in it.
“Happily, the Australian public is not prudish about displays of human frailty in its politicians, and the revelation has actually improved Labor’s standing with the voters,” the newspaper said.
“It’s nice to know that the strippers seem to have given the straitlaced Mr Rudd a bit of a boost Down Under.”
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22277145-23109,00.html
good grief
John Howard’s wine bill for Kirribilli House and the Lodge financial year 2000-01 through to 30 April 2007 $192,578
That all? Seven years wine for the prime minister and guests is not very much. It’s not like you can serve crap. And jesus… good vino when you’re in the house would have to be one of the perks of the job, whoever that person is.
Steven Kaye , I don’t as a rule get personal in any of my posts but I am willing to make an exception in your case.
I don’t know where or how you get the information from that you extrude most probably from out of your backside, but as the old saying goes, garbage in = garbage out”.
How old are you pal? Just how much do you “really” know about what you are spruking.
I would suggest, not only very little, but nothing at all. “Sensible”, fair minded people on both sides of the political divide would “NEVER” entertain the sort of intellectual diarrhea that you spew.
You only accept polling figures when they suit you. You never even read my post or you would have seen that polling figures for Hawke were influenced to a large degree by Keating and the media and that they did not reflect on the “real” situation of the time.
I am sure you weren’t even old enough to be aware of what was happening then let alone have the intelligence to evaluate it.
Scorpio, I think Steven Kaye and Glen will be in rehab shortly with Cerdic Conan after they find out the result in Newspoll.
And they’ll be in a political coma when they discover that even Portlandbet.com’s very conservative seat-by-seat betting (which as recently as a month ago had the Coalition ahead in 77 seats, compared with 71 for Labor and 2 for Independents) now has the Coalition and Labor with 74 seats each:
http://betelection.com/elections/
Judging by the posts here of the ABC saying ‘no substantial change’ in Newspoll, I’ll go for 56-44 2pp.
Glen and Steven, best of luck in trying to beat up this story. I still remember the good old days at Ozpolitics when Glen especially tried so desperately to keep Burkegate, Reingate et al going. “Rudd must resign immediately or Labor is sunk!”, etc. If the polls are any guide, it didn’t work then. What makes you think it will now?
As others have mentioned, this is straight out of Karl Rove’s script. He might have been Bush’s Rasputin and was no doubt clever in his own way. But like Richo here, he played every win as if it was his genius. Both were overrated, IMHO.
And even if we assume he is clever, there’s nothing to suggest that Swiftboating plays out very succesfully here. Australians are pretty relaxed about these things, even if celebrity media trivialisation often leads to them being seven-day wonders.
Hi, just thought you would like to know, the ABC says the poll numbers have stayed the same for the parties. But Kevin Rudd has increased his lead as preferred PM. No figures provided.
Rudd was quite good up against some pretty probing questioning from Kerrie O tonight on 7:30.
If that is the only grenade they have to throw during the campaign I would be somewhat worried were I the Govt.
Also, the narrative about a “Govt. dirt unit” may also be sinking into the public consciousness, meaning that other mud to be thrown (at, I would assume, Garrett, Gillard and other ALP front benchers) may be devalued by this stripper business, Brian Burke, Therese Rein etc already having been peddled.
While Kevin Rudd gets criticised a lot for duplicating John Howard’s agenda, I’m actually starting to think that Rudd deserves more credit for his tactics than he’s getting.
I think back to his very first press conference as Labor leader, when he said he wanted to end the “blame game” between the Comonwealth and the states. I thought at the time that this issue, of referring Commonwealth-state relations, would be an almighty yawn for voters. I admit I was wrong.
What happened was that it goaded the government, and its pollsters, into getting stuck into state governments. No doubt they expected Rudd would try to defend all the state governments against these attacks. In fact, Rudd preceded Howard in opposing Beattie’s amalgamations.
Now I can foresee, as we get closer to the election, Rudd holding joint news conferences wth Labor premiers, announcing major joint agreements on various aspects of health and education with the states, if he’s re-elected. Howard will be forced to criticise this co-operation, and work out ways to over-ride the states.
Ultimately, I think Australians don’t like confrontation and disagreement, and may go for the harmony that Rudd is offering, rather than the Commonwealth-state conflict that Howard has declared he will provoke (in his speech today, for instance).
Howard has a legitimate argument tha it’s dangerous for all states and the Commonwealth to have governments f the same political colour. But if he presents the alternative as a perpetual fight between Labor state governments and a federal coalition government, the voters might prefer Rudd’s less confrontational alternative.
The irony is that Howard has managed to co-operate with the states on quite a few issues over the past decade, and only now is it starting to unravel (eg Victoria’s refusal to participate in the national water plan, even though Rudd supports it).
Rudd should start publicly saying that Howard is trying to increase the “blame game”, at the expense of getting difficult issues resolved.
labor 55 , liberals 45
I think the real loser out of this is Alexander “Dolly” Downer. This isn’t the first time he’s mercilessly slagged off Rudd (and the other times didn’t involve much substance either). He has a large “doctors’ wives” constituency in his electorate and they are already pissed off with the Howard Government’s treatment of asylum seekers and indigenous Australians (not to mention the more general problems with their, well, truthfulness) and, trust me, they won’t take kindly to this latest round of muck-raking, particularly coming from a local member whom they believe should be too busy – what with being Foreign Minister and all that – to get involved with this sort of thing.
It also won’t help him that he has a “doctor’s wife” running against him – a strong local candidate and one who won’t scare the conservative horses in his electorate.
Mark my words, on election night the seat to watch will be Mayo, despite what – on paper – appears to be an unattainable swing…
John Howard’s wine bill for Kirribilli House and the Lodge financial year 2000-01 through to 30 April 2007 $192,578
Pi
Agree with you, not much when you consider it, only about $80 a day or a couple of good South Australian reds.
But as others say the election should not be about the PM’s drinking habits or what Rudd did 4 years ago, it should be about what the government has done and has to offer and what the oppostion has to offer.
Seems like they have all run away.
Probably awaiting the next issue of the LP talking points.
Can hardly wait.
Thanks, Aristotle, had a hunch there might have been something personal in Dolly’s dobbing. He’s a piece of work orright. Be great if the voters of Mayo twig that Downer of Baghdad won’t be able to deliver so well for them from the opposition benches. They flirted with John Shumann(sp?) of The Dems in 2001 and almost elected him. What a magnificent quinella for “ordinary Australians”. Howard loses Bennelong and Dolly done in Mayo.
Interesting ideas, Tony. I’ve also thought from Rudd’s initial press conference about the “blame game” that there were some very useful re-arrangements available between the States & Fed govts in 3 critical areas, being health, education and transport, in terms of responsibility and funding agreements, if Labor got in federally. If team Rudd has got some smart economists beavering away on policy to be released during the election proper in these areas, the carpet/rug/whatever will be well and truly out from under the Coalition, whose evolving combative & negative relationship with the States will continue to play out as it already has. Imported rubbish, such as the Rove approach to campaigns, is just too well known for it to fly. Steven Kaye, please take note, and relay to Liberal HQ. We just don’t buy it, and more than that, we don’t like it. Newspoll I reckon will be 56 v 44 TPP, i.e., reckon Possum is right about the punters having moved, and they ain’t going to again.
Well speak of the devil…as a conspiracy theorist, I think this war between Rudd and Beattie may have been carefully concocted to draw Howard into the Commonwealth-state equivalent of the Iraq war.
This from ABC online news a short time ago..
Mr Howard set out the goals today, which included making the nation more prosperous and secure.
He has also talked about a new era of Commonwealth-state relations and said at times he would bypass the states and deal directly with local communities.
“We should be what I would call aspirational nationalists,” he said.
He has done that recently with the Mersey Hospital in Tasmania, and leaked Liberal research shows he has been advised to take on the states as a political strategy.
Labor Leader Kevin Rudd has dismissed the plan.
“It strikes me as a piece of pre-election political posturing,” he said.
Mr Rudd asks why Mr Howard has not acted earlier.
“Mr Howard has had 11 long years to fix the federation and has not done so,” he said.
But Mr Howard has questioned his opponent’s credentials.
“I defy anyone to identify the core economic convictions of the alternative prime minister of Australia,” he said.
Labor has also promised to work differently with the states – it calls its plan collaborative federalism.
States react
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie says John Howard is ripping up the goodwill that existed between the Commonwealth and the states in a desperate bid to get re-elected.
“That’s a great shame because while COAG (Council of Australian Governments) wasn’t perfect, we made some great advances at COAG in partnership,” he said.
“And that included everything from gun regulation right through to electricity, you name it.
“We did some good work and the Prime Minister is wrecking that to try and get elected and I just think that’s sad.”
New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma says Mr Howard is simply electioneering by threatening more federal takeovers of state responsibilities.
“What matters for the people of Australia when they vote will be outcomes and they’ll be judging a Government that for 11 years has had precious little to say or do on things like infrastructure, ports and all the other nonsense that he and and his Treasurer have been going on with for the last couple of weeks,” Mr Iemma says.
“There is an election on. It will be a month or two months away.
“As his research told him to do, pick out an argument, any argument, any fight you can have with the states to deflect from your own failings.”
As I said earlier, I think the voters will prefer the team that offers harmony rather than confrontation.
Does Howard think people will like his taking over the States? Am I missing something? I thought that would unsettle people and have them concerned.
His latest policy speech seems like he intends to take over the States.
Why hasnt the media asked Mr Rudd this question….
Mr Rudd you claim that you cannot remember the evening because you got drunk…then how can you stand by your statements that you acted like a complete gentleman throughout the night?
“Virtually unchanged”. Now, leaving aside my stated critique of objectivity and bias (its impossible to be the first, and avoid the latter), if the poll was 57-43 then the ABC has turned into prudish smurfs, and if its 55-45 then there all a bunch of pinko Mensheviks waiting for their long overdue moderate democratic revolution.
Maybe Howard should take a page from Lenin, lie on the table and sleep in parliament, then dissolve it, declaring only he can rule in the interest of the country.
Might lead to tens of millions of deaths, innefficient (ie corrupt) and totalitarian government, and an arms race that would make Hitler blush. But hey, it kept Lenin’s party in the drivers seat for over 70 years! Power for power’s sake.
The way Howard’s been backflipping, he could get from the extreme right of the ideological pendulum (where he lives), to the extreme left, in about a week. I wonder how long it took for Windschuttle to do the opposite? Hopefully longer than the PhD he never got, before asserting Tasmanian aboriginals were criminals who had only themselves to blame for dying out. Not bad for the PM’s favourite cultural warrior.
Rambling now, must stop.
NEWSPOLL: 55-45 OR 57-43
Kina im not sure how you feel but im an Australian before a Victorian i should hope that you would put your country ahead of your State…
Funny how people think Mayo will go to Labor im sorry but the ALP managed only 13689 primary votes to Downer’s 44520 votes…anybody who thinks Mayo will be lost to the ALP has rocks in their heads…
Mr Glen,
You are asked to stand by your statements that prove you are a Liberal prat!
I stand by my statements which prove that i do not support a sleazebag politician who has sullied the name of Australia on the world stage by going to strip joints while at the same time being an official observer to the UN…
I also stand by my statements which prove you have blind faith in Rudd as your messiah…id contemplate losing the election because Greeensborough Growler your hubris could come back to bite you if Rudd doesnt win come November.
Hi Glen
Re; your Post no 74.
You seemed to be swinging the bat a little, so just a quick message of support.
1) Like you, I can’t understand why so many people think the issue of Kevin Rein and the strippers is going to blow over. I agree with those who say the issue is not big….it is likely to be a very small issue for most voters. However no-one on this blog seems to acknowldege the main point and its this (!) – the issue is PER-MAN-ENT.
Just like Malcolm Fraser’s missing pants, or Downer’s all-to-visible fishnets, this has already become one of those things that will always be a Kevin Rein character issue. From here on in, it will be a case of KR, the wannabe PM who went to a stip joint in New York, the Christian who had a perv when he was away and ‘on tour’..its no killer blow to KR, but its always going to be part of the background.
2) There is no comparison to Hawke. Just stop it please. Hawke was already known as a bit of a swordsman, so a story like this would just…well it wouldn’t have even been worth printing, it would only have been another hawkie story,,,,something that adds to a picture that evryone had formed already.
The issue for Kevin Rein is that he looks like a poster boy for Christian values, so clean cut and nice…hell I’m not even sure he has had to shave yet.
Beattie says it will show that Kevin is human after all, but I think people are going to wonder whether he’s a bit of hypocrit
Glen Says:
August 20th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Why hasnt the media asked Mr Rudd this question….
You best get busy Glen and start e-mailing all the media outlets and see what the reason is.
There must be one. Probably not the one you are looking for though.
But good luck with it anyway.
looks like Rudds lead as prefereed pM will widen.
tpp stil around 56-44 or so
Hahehaheahe
LOL@Howard on ABC News.
“When we win we will expire/aspire….”
The aspire was the correction…
So if Bush decided to dissolve all the States into one because America comes before States? I suspect when you have a great big country breaking it up into mangeable segments means better service and understanding of that segment. By the same token we could have one big super-council that looks after every town and city in Ausralia. And in theme of extremes I guess the most efficient and simplest form of management would be to give control to just one person.
However, I wasnt referring to if dissolving states was a good thing or not but if the general populace would be upset with such a notion.
Yeah Scorpio there is a reason 95% of them vote Labor thats why they are always soft on the ALP…
TPP will be unchanged, Labor primary steady.
Howard will lose ground on Preferred PM.
Thats a prediction.
Frank Calabrese
When we win we will “expire”.
Frank, it may be that Howard has some sort of idea that he would like to be preserved and put on display like Lenin.
A plaque attached, “The best PM Australia never had for all eternity”.
Trouble is he is already on the nose, kinda like “a dead man walking”.
When was the report from ABC about Newspoll (I’m sorry, I just got home)?
Was it always out this early on a Monday?
Anyone got a link?
“Beattie says it will show that Kevin is human after all, but I think people are going to wonder whether he’s a bit of hypocrite”
Mr Squiggle, firstly, thank you for being a little more rational than Glen (who I notice is already starting to have sour grapes over the lack of outrage at strippergate). But I think the problem for the government and also for some of their supporters is that they overestimate the extent to which Australians are prudes. The vast majority are actually quite laid back. We are not Americans. And Australia actually has one of the lowest proportions of active Christians in the Western world.
Few people will see Kevin as a hypocrite because they simply don’t take such a hard-lined, moralistic stance on the incident in NY.
Generally, trying to import smear tactics from the U.S. will simply not work here. And this has been shown time and time again by the failure of previous smear tactics that have been used against Rudd throughout this year. They usually backfire on the government and cost them votes, and in the end, Rudd emerges completely unscathed and sometimes even more popular.
Smear tactics only work when they are CONGRUENT with the victim’s actual public personality.
Labor seem to know and understand this, which is why they don’t go for the smear anywhere near as often as the Liberals.
But, let’s face it, the current Federal government is stupid. When you try the same tactic over and over again, expecting each time to get a different result, it is a sign of sheer stupidity. They are slow learners.
Unfortunately, I suspect that they will continue to go the smear over the next couple of months with any amount of dirt they can find (after all, Ruddock’s dirt unit is being paid for something, right?). And each time it will backfire, unless they actually find something that fits Kevin’s public personality. But even if they did find the real super-duper dirt, I’m not sure that it would stick because they have lost so much credibility with previous smear attempts that the majority of Australians would probably dismiss it as more mud-slinging and quickly move on.
Are you starting to see why Howard and his government are being perceived as desperate and now, increasingly grubby?
abc tv news in Perth
Glen said (222)
(Amused said: Menzies – officiated at the Suez peace talks in Egypt with a bottle of whiskey handy. Nasser referred to him (contemptuously) as the ‘bushman’.) “Whats wrong with that (…) is that the best thing you can come up with on Menzies our greatest ever Prime Ministerâ€
Crikey Glen. I thought Menzies helping himself to shots of whiskey, in a Moslem country while trying to negotiate an end to a war was pretty impressive. But you’ve missed the point. I’m not trying to come up with anything bad on any of them. I like it that these guys were human. I like that they had their vices, but still (in most cases) did a great job. I think there’s also a lesson that politician’s personal lives, like most lives lived on full-throttle, are often quite messy.
If I was looking to list something about Menzies that I thought was really bad, there’s plenty of options. But I won’t because that’s not the point. The point is that illicit s-x and/or booze are often part and parcel of senior political life. Kev getting pissed and briefly attending a strip club years before he was even Opposition Leader, let alone PM isn’t quite in the same league as most of his predecessors.
#209
What would be termed ‘evangelical’ in the USA are a tiny minority, however growing, getting a fair share of immigrant converts and having higher birth rates than rest of the population and they are an important vote in a few electorates Labor needs to win like Makin or keep like Bendigo.
Labor’s chances of winning this election are only 50/50.
Looks like a bit of “buck passing” going on here.
“Rudd fallout goes on”
Howard; “But Prime Minister John Howard abruptly terminated a press conference when asked if his Government was responsible for the story surfacing so close to the start of an election campaign.”
Rudd; ” The Labor leader insisted he did not know who was responsible for the story surfacing, but pointed the finger at Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.”
“People asked me yesterday, in a press conference, whether this was part of some sort of smear campaign. I think those questions should be directed to the Government because they alone are the ones who could answer that,” Mr Rudd told ABC Radio.
“I just don’t know. And that’s why I said don’t know, ask Mr Downer, ask his staff.”
Howard; Mr Howard said questions about the story’s source should be referred to the journalist involved, News Ltd’s Glenn Milne.
“Beyond that I have nothing to say about it, I’m not going to comment on it and it’s not going to form part of any observations I make today or in the future,” Mr Howard told reporters, before walking off.
Milne; “Milne denied the Government was the source of the story.
“It was outside political circles but it was around, so it certainly wasn’t placed by the Government,” Mr Milne said.”
So that’s all right then. No incontrovertible source, no confirmation by reliable witnesses. Total breach of “Journalists ethics”.
Abbott; “Health Minister Tony Abbott, who declined to deny ever visiting a strip club, said Mr Rudd was wrong to suggest the Government was behind the leak.”
Let the games begin.
Glen, talk about “clinging to the wreckage”.
Burke? Long Tan? Eumundie? Strippergate?
Paaaaaa-thetic.