Politics For Dummies

Last week, I was moseying through Sydney’s Abbeys Bookshop, minding my business, when I spied a silver haired gentleman with a power suit and a refined look browsing the new releases. The guy seemed familiar. Suddenly it clicked. My boyhood hero – Tintin! On a second glance, I realised my error. It was none other than Saint Kevin himself – praisalord! And what did he buy? What else but the latest Quarterly Essay by Peter Hartcher: ‘How to Win the 2007 Election’. Well, at least it wasn’t ‘Politics for Dummies’… Seriously though, it’s good to know Rudd reads his Hartcher but I did wonder what words of wisdom he might gain from such a book. So I gave it a read.

Firstly, Hartcher opens with a method polling companies use to gauge politicians’ images. It’s called the ‘projective technique’ and has had a long history of being applied in market research in order to discover consumers’ ‘deeper, unarticulated feelings’ beneath their surface responses. It was recently used in the 2004 US election, where voters were asked, if the electoral candidates were cars, what make would they be? Bush got the Ford – old, reliable, American. Kerry got BMW – expensive, elitist, European. In Australia, we ask what kind of dog our politicians remind us of. So Howard got bulldog or fox terrier. In other words, the worker dog – small, agile, aggressive. Costello got labrador or cocker spaniel – the kind of dog you’d like to play in your backyard but not the kind you want to protect your house and family. Beazley, then Labor leader at time of poll, got Saint Bernard. Likeable and loveable but also big, cuddly, slow and dopey. Rudd wasn’t dog polled but Hartcher predicts that he would be more terrier than labrador.

But look, let’s be truthful. What we really want to hear is what kind of hobbit Howard and Rudd would be. There’s a great quote in Hartcher’s essay that he takes from Labor’s national secretary Tim Gartrell, who described Howard as “a 21st Century cross between Richard Nixon and Gollum from Lord of the Rings“.

Ouch. (Personally I always thought more Mr Garrison from South Park).

But then what does that make Kevin Rudd? Hans Blix crossed with Frodo Baggins?

But back to my point (yeah Dude, what was your point?). My point, or rather Hartcher’s point, is about first impressions. Hartcher says that the two most important issues that will win the election are the economy and national security (or ‘Saruman’ and ‘Sauron’ respectively). These are the two issues Liberals are associated with image wise and the ones Howard has come out explicitly to emphasise in this year’s election. If Labor cannot first gain credibility on these two points they cannot win.

But Hartcher does give good marks to Rudd so far. Although it is going to be very tough (if not impossible) to gain ground on the economy he credits Labor for bringing Keating (or ‘Gandalf’) back into the fold after he was all but ignored in the last election. This way Labor can claim some credit for the economy through Keating’s vital economic reforms. Hartcher also predicts interest rates to be less of a scare button than the last election. This is because the ‘notorious 17 per cent’ criticism or the ‘yeah but yours were 17′ defence (what Hartcher calls the ‘Spinal Tap’ defence – ‘Yeah, but this one goes to 11′) were attacked last year when Wayne Swan reminded the Liberals that interests rates actually hit 21 per cent in 1982 under then Liberal treasurer John Howard.

In regards to national security, Hartcher is less optimistic. He believes that Labor can only gain the edge on this issue if it is given to them by ‘chronic misjudgment’ from Howard. I’m a little less skeptical. The Iraq disaster and Howard’s partisan criticism of the US Democrats earlier this year already seem to be major mistakes on Howard’s part. What more does he have to do?

The final (more interesting) point is that climate change (or ‘Treebeard’) has, almost out of nowhere, become the third critical issue. And this time Labor has the edge, mostly due to Howard’s ignorance of its electoral importance up until now. However, Hartcher still concedes that Howard might turn it around on Labor by emphasising that good economic management is the key to solving climate change (through investment in green technology, the $10bn Murray Darling water scheme, balancing the economic needs with climate compromises etc).

All in all, an excellent essay. There’s a lot here that would benefit Rudd, especially how he’s perceived among the electorate and the ways in which Howard preys on our fears and anxieties. Now the only question I have is what would Frodo do?