Silver bullet

This week, Jase has hid his candle for Costello deep under a bushel - click here.

You have to scroll down to the third-last paragraph to see what all his wittering about age is really about. He neglects to point out that non-developed nations (I assume he means countries outside the OECD) tend to have average ages below the age of 68, as do all but a handful of Aborigines, such that someone in their forties is very senior indeed. That, however, is the sort of criticism you'd make of a proper journalist.

So Jase:

• What's Peter Costello's Chief of Staff like? Do a better job than Nutt, eh? How, exactly? Give your answer using examples, and cut out any crap about Equatorial Guinea.


• What pearls of wisdom have been stomped into the mud by Nutt's trotters? How would the fortunes of the government, and the future of the country be different if only those ideas had a better reception?


• Given that it was only a few days ago that you said it wasn't too late for a switch to Costello, what (not who, what) changed your mind?


• Do you think Costello's smart-arse performances this week about groceries had any impact in the marginals, Jase? Any at all?


• Would Vanessa Goodwin (or any other Liberal in a marginal seat) really want Costello campaigning with her, rather than Howard?


• Where are the voters who'd vote Liberal if Howard were gone and your man Costello held the top job? Are they outweighed by the numbers who voted for Howard previously and will vote for the seemingly (and actually!) younger, fresher version of Howard known as "Kevin Rudd"?


• A year ago, Kim Beazley was leader of the ALP. The conventional wisdom from places like this suggest that Howard well and truly had the measure of both Beazley and Costello.

Honestly.

there remains the question of how much younger and fresher he would appear to the voters, given that he has held the nation's purse strings for 11 years.

Insofar as a piece like this has a point at all, it is to examine what a Costello Prime Ministership might be like, and how (if?) it might be more appealling than a Rudd one. This is the piece you should have written, Jase.

By the way: Costello has been the Treasurer of the government, not the nation.

I am starting to get tired of doing Jase's job for him. His love letters to Peter Costello get more embarrassing the less he has to say. Anyone from the MSM who still whinges about bloggers is weighed down by having to defend the waste of space that is the JoK.