Read
this:
As recently as two years ago, Mrs. Kirchner had seemed a long shot to win a second four-year term. Her combative style, highlighted by a heated dispute over [commodity] export taxes, sent her approval ratings below 30 percent.
Now, take out the rampant inflation and cronyism, as well as the lack of foreign investment. For goodness sake, leave aside her personal arrangements. Substitute mining for agriculture in commodity terms (and look at the special tax on an insanely profitable industry that facilitates tax cuts across the board). Most importantly
look at an opposition that doesn't really know what it believes in - and tell me if there aren't recognisable patterns here:
The economy emerged as the central issue on voters’ minds. By many measures [the country] is booming: the economy is expected to grow ... employment has reached record levels; and the poverty rate has been cut by more than half since 2007, the government said. The country continues to benefit from heavy government spending, high commodity prices and strong demand from China for its ... products.
Can't happen here?
From the article, support from the young and there is dearth of alternatives, struck a note.
ReplyDeleteNewspoll polls based on landline phone users is not a credible base on which our news media runs the "julia is finished" news cycle.
And what critical analysis has been offered on Abbott that the media can assume he is electable.
Let's hope this comes to pass but I think Kirchner was riding a massive sympathy vote wave generated by the death of her husband and predecessor as president. I don't know that it would have the same effect if Tim went under a bus. Perhaps the swing noted by Newspoll is the sign of better things to come.
ReplyDeleteThanks Sue and Doug. I hardly think Kirchner's sympathy vote was that big, given the youth vote and the disarray of her opponents.
ReplyDeleteElection campaigns change votes, which is why the assumptions behind polling are silly.
Don't forget that Gillard, for all her current aimlessness, is a working class fighter who has had to scrap and scrape for just about everything she's achieved.
ReplyDeleteShe's more than happy to go toe-to-toe with Abbott because she knows he's just a spoilt bully whose one tactic his whole life has been to scream and shout until he gets his way. Personally, I blame his parents and maybe rap music as well.
Regardless, Keating got it spot on with Abbott: "Give me the job or I'll wreck the joint."
Gillard knows this and is ready for a long fight. Won't be long before the internal rumblings in the Coalitino get louder - they're not happy with his 'prediction' about the pokies legislation for a start.
How short are the memories of the aussie voter,dont they remember the millions spent by the tories trying to convince workers they would be better off working on master servant contracts. God help Australia if that bunch of extreme right wing conservatives ever get power,Abbott was always Howard's bover boy, Julia Gillard has had to contend with Murdoch's lies as well as the constant propaganda pumped out by the likes of Alan Jones,I hope and pray that she wins the next election
ReplyDeleteSteve and Tony, Abbott is not a bad guy but he is too weak to stop the real bad guys having their way.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with Tony is that he simply has no idea how offensive he can be.
ReplyDeleteI just watched Tony Abbott just claim that the pokies reform was "eroding the nations fabric".
My parents came from a nation torn apart by brutal civil war. Mobs of people butchered each other in the streets, entire villages were flattened, a stagnated economy, political killings, and the emigration of hundreds of thousands of the nations best and brightest.
That is a fucking erosion of a nation's fabric. A regulation that makes people pre-commit to how much money they can lose in an hour is not.
The media here is so biased and so much is being censored undemocratically. Then Abbott et co lie and get away with it. Then add just how few ALP MPs are fighting back
ReplyDeleteby Socrates