Now, Rudd and Howard are morphing into two halves of Station (http://www.arturogil.com/images/bt5.jpg). It was a good tactic to neutralise Howard’s advantage, but the advantage is now Rudd’s for Howard to take back. So at a time when Rudd should be distinguishing himself on the key issues (and, sadly, for JHMG that’s the economy, stupid), we have Rudd shadowing the coalition’s budget and then on IR we now have Rudd the ballbreaker (http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/no-nonsense-kev-takes-on-unions/2007/06/10/1181414111974.html). I’m not sure who he plans to impress with this: battlers? business? Tory faithful?

As you have said, Oli, Rudd can make his play on the economy, pointing out the coalition’s family-silver-selling budget balancing and (as he has been to some extent) pointing out that whilst the mining gravy train can survive without investment, we need to plan now for the economy beyond this: meaning education, environment, innovation, etc. It seems to be the difference between the ‘Lucky Country’ in Horne’s original ironic sense (http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/luckycountry/) and the ‘Clever Country’.

It’s unfortunate that Rudd is on the defensive (thanks to his Missus) when he should be hogging the soapbox looking proactive. The latest polls suggest he may be too late already. Maxine for PM, I say.

Apologies in advance for another comment as long as your blog-post itself, but I take my jounralism lessons from Alan Ramsey…

Howard’s image problem is an absolutely key issue for mine. For this reason the image Rudd paints of himself in contrast is crucial. I’m beginning to think that the decision voters make at election time is going to boil down to two basic questions:

1. Is Howard (the government) a spent force?

And 2. is the alternative to Howard a reliable and safe bet (but who may just possibly offer us something better?

With regards to issue #1, I would suggest that everyone save Gerard Henderson et al sees the Government as pretty much a spent force. On national security, the world political climate has now moved drastically against the position the government aligned itself and people know it. On values, with AWB, with Hicks, with IR, with children overboard, the Government has also been irreperably discredited. Only on issues of outright xenophobia does the government perhaps still possess a higher card on australian values.

Moreover, Climate Change, and I would suggest also IR, have highlighted the government’s general lack of vision for the country. I would suggest that the massive deficit the governemnt has in the polls reflects this view of the governemnt as old, tired, and a spent force. Moreover, after such a long time in forming this view of the government the electorate is probably, hopefully!, now wise enough to be pretty cynical about one “impressive” budget with shitloads of money for education, for the environment and a backflip to boot on IR. Regardless, they just don’t trust the guy to deliver anymore..

But Kevin Rudd can’t win purely off the back of a negative view of Howard (point #2). He absolutely has to sell himself as a legitimate alternative who might offer us better but who definitely won’t offer us worse. Otherwise people will stick with the devil they know. Take the recent election in NSW: People would have liked to have changed the government, but the alternative just looked so impossibly dismal, they decided to give an old goverment with a new leader a chance to prove itself. It’s funny, for all our apparent friendliness and welcoming nature Australians are a pretty sceptical and conservative group of people when it comes to experinmenting with new political leaders. As Hugh Mackay points out, Australians have only changed the federal government 4 times in the last 50 years!

This is why I’m a tad concerned about the recent performance of Rudd in response to the Budget, the “I’m aneconomic conservative” ads (which, you are totally right, Dave, are a bit like Boromir saying “trust me with the ring, I promise I won’t misuse it for deviant pleasures!”) and his response to IR has also been a bit of a worry. It just seems a bit like he’s put himself onto the defensive, where he should be at least attacking, if not ramming home the advantage, thus reinforcing the already perceived view of the Government as tired and past it.

He should be ramming home the idea that he’s not just a safe bet but a better than safe bet! That way, even if there are some successful counteracttacks by Howard and Costello, and even if not every policy sticks, it leaves people at least more inclined to think: “look, i can’t stand howard and that lot, and rudd seems like a competent and bright young guy who, even if i don’t like all his ideas, might just pleasantly suprise me.”

I’m also concerned about the way Howard and Costello are aiming to focus everything through the lense of the economic management issue. I feel it’s a potentially very persuasive argument (for the electorate) and could quite possibly annihilate Rudd’s appearance of being both safe and different if he doesn’t manage his response well. I think it is as a platform to perform this electoral strategy that the Budget is a victory for the government.

So, if I were Rudd, my response would be to take on this argument directly. That is to say: Take Howard on over the issue of the economy!!! It might sound like madness, but as Hans Solo would say: “That’s why it’s gonna work!” IF Rudd shows fear on the economy and people sense it, he may well suddenly find himself in big trouble. His image as a safe alternative will evaporate faster than puddle on the sun.

What Rudd should do is to respond by focusing the economy through the lens of VISION and the capacity to respond to new challenges which the future is already bringing. Thus he can realign climate change, education, new ideas, broadband, etc as prior to the economy, not secondary. He needs to show that it’s fundamentally about ideas, NOT just bookkeeping and surpluses. Any fool can keep surpluses and cut taxes in a global economic boom! These Ads about economic conservatism stray from the point he needs to make. In fairness, he tried to say something like this in his Budget reply, but he didn’t quite articulate it powerfully enough.

If I were Rudd, and geez I wish I were right now!, I would follow the golden rule of Telemarketing: Once you have your audience’s attention (which he has), you have to, first, CREATE the need for change, then DEMONSTRATE the solution! This helps unify the story he’s trying to tell us about where he wants to take us and why we need to go there. He seems ok at demonstrating solutions, but the problem is that with the economy going so strongly he has to really think cleverly to “create” the need for his solutions. For this reason I think he absolutely must keep the heat on the areas where the gvoernment is genuinely weak (in a word: VISION) and forget about focusing on his own perceived weaknesses. That only draws more attention to them anyway!

BTW, won’t it be a headfuck if Howard loses his own seat to Maxine Mckew but the government gets re-elected…Maxine’s leading in the polls!