Newspoll has been sprung on us a day early, showing Labor’s two-party lead widening to 56-44 from 55-45 a fortnight ago. Labor’s primary vote is up from 47 per cent to 48 per cent, and the Coalition’s is down from 41 per cent to 39 per cent. Kevin Rudd has taken a slight hit on his satisfaction rating, down from 65 per cent to 62 per cent.
Nice positive stuff on late channel 9 news – Rudd would take govt money wasted on advertising and put it into Health. Hahaha That has got to hit home.
Back from dinner to find we have shifted from psephology to international affairs. Excellent.
First of all, well done Ukrainian democrats. A poke in the eye for the loathsome Putin.
I fail to see how a US attack on Iran would produce any electoral benefit for the Howard government. It is a sad fact (sad for those of us who support the US alliance anyway) that the Bush administration has totally destroyed US credibility by its disastrous conduct of the invasion of Iraq, as well as its general foreign policy incompetence. An attack on Iran will meet with virtually unanimous condemnation. (In saying that I make no comment on the case for or against destroying Iran’s nuclear capability – this is a purely political comment.) If Howard supports it he will also become a target of condemnation, although mostly from people who have already decided to vote against him. I doubt it would shift many votes one way or the other, although it would work against Howard being able to engineer a swing back to him during the campaign. Having said that I don’t think the US will attack Iran, but with Bush and Cheney who can say anything with certainty?
546
Scorpio Says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:08 am
kina @ 532 Says:
For some reason William doesnt see a link between Iran and the Federal election…
…….
Scorpio, I think Bush has been angling to have a go at Iran for a long time. But I also think he will take time to first publicly promote a case. He is a very weakened President and is just starting to regain a grip on the military agenda in Iraq, where he has a great deal at stake.
He’s not likely to just bomb Iran one fine October morning, much as he would like to. This will take time to bring to a head, surely…
I have a now Australian living Canadian author friend who used to walk the corridors of power in the US (an advertising group) and out of curiosity he went to GW Bush’s own church. He reckons he was totally stunned and shaking for an hour afterwards (and he is no pussy). The mantra preached very hard and with passion was that continual war and chaos must exist in the world before Christ can return.
You have to wonder how seriously Bush really takes this stuff.
Bush can afford to do some sabre-rattling with Iran (which he has done, putting warships off the coast). Bush does not have to face voters again, and other Republicans are distancing themselves from him. The Liberal party as a whole will face the fall-out should Australia tag along for any invasion, particularly given the fiasco that Iraq has become. Recall that many thousands of Australians protested the Iraq War, even whilst taking seriously the claims of WMD and possible terror links.
BenC Says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:02 am
“If you look at Seats by State at Portlandbet, they are predicting that Labor will win 26 seats, including 8 in NSW, 6 in QLD, 2 in Vic, 3 in WA, 4 in SA, 2 in Tas, 1 in NT.”
Yes, that’s about right, the Coalition with about 64 seat s… but why have they suspended seat by seat betting? Has somebody looked at the private polls & launched a Plunge?… the other books seem to be giving more generous ALP odds, so the plunge would presumably be on the Coalition.
It’s also worth remembering that the Iraq invasion would look easy compared to Iran, as awful as that sounds. Iran has over twice the population of pre-war Iraq, has significant military capacities, and has notbeen weakened through years of sanctions. A war with Iran has the potential to be worse even that Vietnam.
Scorpio, please stop being a pain in the arse. My policy is to delete comments about Iran unless they relate to the election. Your statement is an idiotic misrepresentation of it.
blindoptimist Says: @ 553,
Unfortunately, I can’t find the link that I had on Friday. It is a US Blog News site and the Naval Officers who were quoted there seemed to infer that the action will probably commence early in November.
There are already numerous articles out showing that this has been in the planning for some time with over 3,000 targets already identified.
One of the Articles linked to earlier state that Downer just had discussions on Iran with the US Administration and a further article has stated that Brown in the UK is in on it as well as the Israelis.
There’s too much smoke here for my liking and the Bush Administration is well capable of making appalling judgements as we all well know.
If it happens, look forward to an overnight doubling of the oil price and inflation going through the roof. We don’t even need to take any active role for that to happen.
The best thing for Howard, if he really wanted to do the best thing for this country and not himself, would be to totally rule us out of it and strongly counsel the US to rethink it immediately before it is too late.
Hell, I wish I could find that link again. Google took it down just after I linked to it. Probably forced to. I wouldn’t be surprised if those two whistleblowers haven’t been arrested by now.
onimod 528 re sources re Howard critical statement on Govt Advertising.
7.30 Report – Video
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2004/s1137026.htm
But this is what John Howard said about that in 1995.
JOHN HOWARD, PM: The Government is going to use taxpayers money on a disgraceful scam.
This soiled Government is to spend a massive $14 million of taxpayers money over the next two months as part of its pre-election panic.
This grubby tactic will backfire on the Government.
We will ask the Auditor-General to draw up new guidelines on what is appropriate use of taxpayers money in this area
Press release tabled into Hansard by Labor in 2004. The speech was by Emerson:
http://www.aph.gov.au/Hansard/reps/dailys/dr240604.pdf
pg 181
I refer to the press release that the shadow
Treasurer tabled. This is absolutely blinding,
breathtaking hypocrisy. It is from John Howard—
from before he became Prime Minister—
and it refers to a $14 million advertising
campaign under Labor. Compare that $14
million with the $123 million of this government—
and that $14 million campaign
was part of the normal advertising that governments
can legitimately do. There were no
pre-election spikes under Labor. But back
then John Howard—who is now the Prime
Minister of Australia—said in relation to that
$14 million of taxpayers’ money that was
being spent:
This grubby tactic will backfire on the Government.
Taxpayers will see through it. They don’t
want their money wasted on glossy advertising
designed to make the Prime Minister feel good.
Alan Ramsey – SMH
Titanic spending is first-class hypocrisy
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/titanic-spending-is-firstclass-hypocrisy/2007/05/25/1179601668734.html
If you’re sick to death of duplicitous political humbugs, then don’t read any further. You might do yourself damage. On September 5, 1995, six months before voters made him Prime Minister, John Howard issued a statement as leader of the opposition. It said, in part: “In a desperate attempt to find an election life raft, the prime minister [Paul Keating] is beginning an unprecedented propaganda blitz using taxpayers’ money.
Home again. From my carbon trading. Quick look at the international affairs stuff, as described.
Will not Bush have to wait on our election result before he goes in with unknown unwilling?
Abbott: why are voters so unkind?
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/abbott-why-are-voters-so-unkind/2007/06/05/1180809521656.html
Looks like the Libs are starting to eat their own now.
{Mr Abbott blamed the new NSW Liberal MP Pru Goward for feeding these perceptions by criticising Parliament. “If a former press gallery reporter, senior public servant and prime ministerial biographer is so dismayed by the parliamentary culture, where does that leave the general public?”}
There is a theory that Howard will run a longer campaign in order to give time for Rudd to slip up.
However it seems to me that it is the Howard team that is stressed, feeling the pressure and more likely to lose perspective in the heat of the election. They also have a great many more ‘issues’ in their past.
Rudd has run his own strategy this year which involved a lot of ignoring Howard wedges and gazupming him on major issues. I am pretty sure he will run his own campaign with a minimum of dialogue and dispute with the Howard team.
The real problem for Rudd is the murdoch press who have shown their colors. Rudd made a trivial error on tax scales, Costello made a major fundamental error on the calculation of tax using the scales and, also the size of tax cuts, Howard made a May stuff up on tax scales and Downer made a fool of himself trying to ‘cheat’ on Lateline in reciting the tax scales – However which one got reported? Which one got beat up into a critical error over a few days? The most trivial of the lot.
This will be Rudd’s problem. Howard and his team can make as many dumb errors as they like during the campaign and the murdoch press will barely mention them. Every minor slip, even indirect slips will be beat up into major flaws.
[There is a theory that Howard will run a longer campaign in order to give time for Rudd to slip up.]
Um, do the Libs have enough money for a long campaign? If they have a long campaign they probably won’t be able to afford adds for a significant portion. Didn’t the NSW Libs leave adverts for the last week and a half in the state election, because that is all they could afford?
Tony Abbot dismissed poll questions calling the entire issue “Boring”, but 56-44 doesn’t seem too boring when an election is expected to be called in the next few weeks. I have to say – I honestly expected them declare it today in order to have the election before the interest rate announcement, but it didn’t come through. Perhaps the Newspoll that was leaked 1 day early gave them the idea of not doing it on Monday.. who knows? 😉
Definitely, Kina 563.
Weekend soundings are more about anxiety over potential clash of interests. Everyone wants to know the election date. We need to organise our lives, given various work/family commitments. Has huge influence.
Nothing said about media influence.
Yes, and by the way, all think it pretty tough for the PM that he is so worried about challenge of job change. Face up, PM. We do it.
Well, you never really know how people might react to an American attack on Iran. Howard has little to lose, so could stake everything on supporting Bush: on presenting himself as the warrior-candidate. It might work.
But I really think acts of war are not likely to win public support unless they can be justified in terms of national interest as well as on irrefutable legal and moral grounds. Given the chaos in Iraq, the public would probably be very troubled by any extension of the conflict. A lot of people think Bush is stupid, reckless, cynical and deceitful. These are not values that Howard would want to be identifying himself with – hardly the “safe hands” he would like to be known as.
On balance, an attack on Iran would pose a huge problem for Howard. He could scarcely walk away from Bush and yet he could not easily support him either.
Generally I take little notice of Newspoll’s little ‘side polls’ (ie the one they released today) but this one interested me. It’s no surprise Costello is flogging Swan in preferred treasurer, but this stat:
But on the back of five interest rates rises in a row, Labor is narrowing the gap on who would be the best manager of interest rates.
Mr Howard was nominated by 36 percent of voters (up two points from August), compared to 31 percent for Mr Rudd (up four points).
Obviously I haven’t being paying attention here, but I would have thought given the scare campaigns and negativity in the media, Rudd would have been miles in front on this one (or at least ‘in front’.) I wonder if the stories that the ‘libs will be punished for interest rate rises’ actually hold much sway after all.
Makes you wonder what would happen if the economy suddenly becomes the issue of the campaign.
This is not the original article I found Friday, but has some of the information which shows something fairly imminent is possible and Howard is in it up to his eyeballs.
{According to Lieut. Mike Kafka, a spokesman at the headquarters of the Second Fleet, based in Norfolk, Virginia, the Eisenhower Strike Group, bristling with Tomahawk cruise missiles, has received orders to depart the United States in a little over a week. Other official sources in the public affairs office of the Navy Department at the Pentagon confirm that this powerful armada is scheduled to arrive off the coast of Iran on or around October 21. }
{Colonel Gardiner, who has taught military strategy at the National War College, says that the carrier deployment and a scheduled Persian Gulf arrival date of October 21 is “very important evidence” of war planning. He says, “I know that some naval forces have already received ‘prepare to deploy orders’ [PTDOs], which have set the date for being ready to go as October 1. Given that it would take about from October 2 to October 21 to get those forces to the Gulf region, that looks about like the date” of any possible military action against Iran. }
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061009/lindorff
Over to the new thread, everybody …