Rudd: Three months on, still a cunt

A bit over three months ago I posed the following on my Facebook blog:

So it seems that St. Kevin has been labelled by one of his own backbenchers as a friendless, cynical, autocratic, egotistical, narcissistic, short-tempered, thin-skinned, condescending, smart-arse cunt. Now there are many, many people throughout history that this kind of description could apply to, many of them with even greater cults of personality than he does. I mean Stalin, Mao and Mussolini all did pretty reasonable jobs of getting their mug all over the place, and I’m pretty sure they were cunts.

But let’s think more recent. Let’s think Labor recen… oh how silly of me to forget, Mark “L-Plates” Latham! Now revisionism has taken a fierce toll upon the memories of all but his most ardent supporters, and this was assisted by both himself and the party he sought to destroy, but it should be remembered that back in 2004, Latham was the media darling. He was popular for different reasons, yes, his lead was not as wide, yes, but it was close. What should be remembered, above all, though, is that he, like Rudd, established his place in the polls by offering himself as a fresh, new candidate who’s not afraid to say what a lot of people really think, and that he, like Rudd, had no real, significant policy contributions to throw behind this cult of personality.

Rudd has done nothing but play “me too” with Howard since becoming opposition leader. He has offered no real alternative on industrial relations, he is not abolishing VSU, he has made some murmurings about Iraq but given no details of how he would stage a withdrawal and he even used the word “conservative” to describe himself while pushing his Christian faith as a reason to vote for him. The only real policy difference is on climate change, and as Landeryou has been ramming down our throats the last few days, Howard has outflanked him on this too. You can’t put the environment above jobs you’re the leader of the ALP.

Latham learnt this lesson the hard way when he valued his Green preferences over Tasmanian loggers’ jobs, 7 days before the election, and got slammed for it. He then spent that week throwing out more frivolous shit, the electorate didn’t get a strong message, so he never capitalised on the lead his personality had given him with anything consistent policy wise, and he came crashing down.

And so we have Rudd, who as we reach the middle of the election campaign will be unmasked as Howard’s policies in a different container, except for climate change where Howard has the edge. Then we have the incumbency, under which voters will travel to the booths in their new cars and their pockets will be nicely lined with Costello’s tax cuts. Polling by Textor has shown that these people make up a fair chunk of Rudd’s polling at the moment, because they want to “give him a go”, but all that Howard needs to do is sow the slightest seed of uncertainty his opponents economic credentials, that then becomes the only point of differentiation between the two, and the power of incumbency will once again return the most shrewd politician of his time.

Though it’s all based on information we had back in June, and although polls haven’t really swung back in the Coalition’s favour, I stand by the statements I made. Voting against the two men who you reasonably believe have delivered you the current economic prosperity takes a lot more guts than telling someone calling you on a Saturday night that you think you’ll give Rudd a go. As soon as the election campaign begins, the battle will become one of ideas, rather than a popularity contest, and it will be fought on Howard’s terms not because he is dictating that it be so, but because the only ideas Rudd has are either bad, or recycled.

The Liberal party just need to stand by their man, remind the public the great debt they owe Howard and Costello, and they will be returned to government, albeit with a reduced majority.

I also decree here, before the blogosphere, that if Howard loses Bennelong I will eat my hat and youtube the consumption. Watch this space.