tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post5760539225023684979..comments2023-12-06T00:23:28.790+11:00Comments on Press gallery reform: Andrew Elderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04705844456819481896noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-10870612518298305662009-02-04T20:29:00.000+11:002009-02-04T20:29:00.000+11:00The idea that the troglodytes are "playing the lon...The idea that the troglodytes are "playing the long game" died when Karl Rove gave up on George W Bush. The reason why [insert your idea of a Bush-Cheney puppet here, e.g. Bill Frist] is not US President now is because "The Long Game" is a crock.<BR/><BR/>The NSW Opposition has succeeded precisely because it has played down troglodytic aspects of its policies. If O'Farrell was as dumb as Springborg appears to be, he'd have caved on electricity privatisation, Iemma would still be Premier and Debnam would be stalking for another shot. The only NSW Lib MPs who do any policy work are the relatively moderate Jillian Skinner (Health) and Gladys Berejiklian (Transport) - Mick Gallacher (Police) explicitly believes that seat-of-the-pants is the only way to fly, and the rest of them are both lazy and out of their depth. O'Farrell conveys the impression that he'd actually Do Something (see above) if he became Premier, while Springborg hasn't made that transition from critic to Premier-in-waiting.Andrew Elderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04705844456819481896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-61063083905542266102009-02-04T14:02:00.000+11:002009-02-04T14:02:00.000+11:00Andrew, the Liberal conservatives are troglodytes,...Andrew, the Liberal conservatives are troglodytes, but they are surely playing the long game.<BR/><BR/>In both NSW and in Canberra their calculation is simply that sooner or later the goverment will be so on the nose that no swinging voters will care about the ideology of the opposition. Judging by the NSW polls, they're right.<BR/><BR/>Of course, as you point out, the long run effects on party oganisation of alienating large slabs of your core support makes this a pretty risky approach.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-36734905522649063022009-02-02T09:13:00.000+11:002009-02-02T09:13:00.000+11:00I normally don't publish anonymous responses, part...I normally don't publish anonymous responses, particularly those that begin with an insincere apology (no apology is owed for disagreeing with someone). However, I think I've been misrepresented.<BR/><BR/>"social progressives and small l liberals are far from a shrinking constituency" - agreed. It's an indictment of Norman Abjorensen's pretensions to being a political scientst that he would make such a baseless and absurd assertion.<BR/><BR/>"Meg Lees never abandoned those values" - was it too much to expect Lees to articulate a meaningful defence of those values? Might have helped her in not only fending off Stott Despoja but placing the Democrats at the heart of this constituency, and therefore a continuing place at the heart of Australian politics. Those of us who are politically homeless are in this position as a result of poor leadership, from Lees and from within the Liberal Party as well.<BR/><BR/>The last paragraph of the above response alone justifies its publication.Andrew Elderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04705844456819481896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22534369.post-87846954519345487952009-02-01T14:19:00.000+11:002009-02-01T14:19:00.000+11:00" Sure, there are the disgruntled social libera..." Sure, there are the disgruntled social liberals still in or close to the Liberal Party, the former Democrats without a home and fragments of an uncommitted middle class. But this is a small and probably shrinking constituency, as the Australian Democrats discovered to their peril.<BR/><BR/>I'd suggest that the Democrats abandoned small-l liberalism, in favour of the hill of beans Meg Lees got for the GST and the sudden lurch to the plastic-shoes-and-mungbeans left that followed - and that this explains the Democrats' peril."<BR/><BR/>Sorry - but I have to disagree. I think social progressives and small l liberals are far from a shrinking constituency - and Meg Lees never abandoned those values. <BR/><BR/>If anything, the social liberals are a huge and massively unserved proportion of the Australian electorate. They either never joined or abandoned the Democrats because the party failed dismally to articulate what it was that they stood for - including within their party and to those who would be natural democrats supporters. <BR/><BR/>Their demise was not caused by the shrink of their natural constituency, but rather the weak organisation and structure that allowed the party to veer sharply to the left the second they copped 2 seconds of heat for working with the then conservative government, largely because they didn't have a clear understanding within their ranks of what they actually stood for. Had the rank and file - and Stott Despoja - understood what it means to be social progressives/social liberals, and had a clear understanding of what the fundamental values of the party were - then they would have been able to stand and defend rather than destroying their own base and running for the hills.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com