The art of knitting

bushfirebill Uncategorized

From last night, I read this across the road, in response to a comment I made on” metrics” versus “individuals”…

Sure, we’re not metrics as individuals, but it will be metrics that decide the result.

Exactly wrong.

Gillard knitting 2“

Polling metrics (which is what I was referring to) will never decide the result.

Only an election can do that.

I repeat: ONLY an election can do that.

Polls are not elections, especially polls three months out from an election.

I learnt that from believing Possum’s “100 seat” snake oil in 2007. Never again.

There’s a pre-campaign and an actual campaign yet to come, where the punters will be reminded of just how much they will be losing – services, infrastructure, cash, rights at work, good health, better education – by voting for the Coalition’s dry austerity policies and how much they have gained under Labor in the same areas despite trenchant opposition from the Abbott forces.

Knitting, fat ankles, manufactured gaffes, Abbott’s new-born SNAG image and Kevin Rudd will be unimportant.

“What’s in it for them” will be important, much more important than it is now.

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When you don’t like someone, in that Reality TV way of “not liking someone”, it’s easy to tell a pollster that and to kid yourself into thinking that you’re “voting” by telling some anonymous voice from a call center who you prefer, today, now.

It’s almost a purely emotional decision, in between doing the dishes or cooking dinner, or while you’re trying to find your keys.

But as the day for actual decision-making gets closer you look for reassurance that your earlier emotional decision was valid. You start looking for rational justification for your voting intention.

You ask questions. You expect the courtesy of an answer.

I’m not talking about everyone. There are rusted-ons on both sides, of course. they’ll always vote the same way. Perhaps they see current politics as part of a life’s continuum, just another opportunity, or round in the fight where a long-held view can be expressed.

I’m talking about the few per cent in the middle that make the difference in just about every election: the suggestible ones, about one in 15-to-20 people.

The coming election is an existential battle between Liberal and Labor, between the Old Media and New Media, and between poll results and election day voting.

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An entire industry has grown up in the past three years, centered around predicting essentially unpredictable events. We have seen more polling over the entire time – post-election, mid-term and now the final straight – than I can remember.

Yet, despite the apparent rude good health of the Polling Estate, it’s existence is in play.

We’ve seen more analysis, more polling companies, more contrasting methodologies than ever before. A lot of this is because the government was seen as being in danger of imminent obliteration – from defecting independents, to Rudd Comebacks, to No Confidence motions – so polls were taken as often as possible.

It eventually became a mantra that the government couldn’t possibly survive, based on poll results. And then the polls were somehow forgotten. The bitter message was distilled down to “She’s gone.” It became a self-justifying proposition or, (as I prefer to term it) a circle jerk.

But survive the government did. It’s gone nearly full term now and Labor is still in power, and Gillard is still PM. The analysis of polls that was claimed to show the government was doomed next week or the week after that was wrong.

There are a lot more knitters, it seems, than there are poll analysts or journalists.

Poll analysts were mocked, and rightly so. All their spreadsheets and charts were useless against the will of a group of individuals in government, and one particular individual who held it all together – the PM – to not only survive, but prosper, getting 600 bills through in vitally important areas of major policy.

The more the poll analysts were mocked, the more trenchant they became. Next time they’d be right. But they never were. Not once.

In the term “poll analysts” I include journalists working for an agenda-driven Old Media, plus chartists and spreadsheet junkies who claim to be able to predict the future. I’ve seen enough predictions of the future go wrong when it comes to predicting the longevity of this government to believe that no-one has a clue what will happen on September 14th.

So much has been so wrong, so often, that it’s pretty clear to me we are in uncharted territory (forgive the pun).

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Julia Gillard seems to drive people crazy.

She drives the media crazy because she won’t answer their gotchas and won’t do what they predict she will do. She openly mocks them, and they are ripe for mocking. Gillard is the living proof of that. For example, last night on Q&A they spent 25 minutes discussing her, and why she won’t just give up.

She drives the punters crazy because, while they are rabid and foul-mouthed, they can never get her to answer them in kind. It must be infuriating for the sexists out there every time she calls them out. Women are supposed to buckle under to threats and intimidation and their gender being slagged off by men. But Gillard just digs in.

Rudd too must be getting to the unhinged point now. No matter what he tries he can’t get her to hand power back to him. He will have to fight for it every inch of the way and he doesn’t have the resources or (in my opinion) the ticker.

Every fight he’s won in the party room he’s won it with a show of hands, the result has been pre-arranged. The last fight he won, back in 2006, was with Gillard’s assistance.

She knows all about Rudd’s tactics. She’s read his book. She wrote a lot of it.

Understanding his tactics so well she’s been able to stay one step ahead of him at all times, interfering with his chosen ground for challenging and his preferred timing, rather brilliantly in fact. Put up, or shut up Kevin.

You can see the venom in anti-Gillard and pro-Coalition postersaround the blogs. She infuriates them too. She just won’t lay down and die, like the political text book says she should. You’d think that if the Coalition commenters were so sure of the final outcome they’d be a lot less antsy.

In all of these instances the hatred and agitation Gillard engenders – simply by staying put and refusing to give in, by demanding that her enemies actually fight the battle, not just puff up their chests like so many territorial mountain goats, and in the meantime getting on with governing – is a product of their deep-down concern that she can win the election, that somehow the polls and the pundits – and themselves – are wrong.

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Gillard has made a hobby of confounding her critics. She has routinely and ritually humiliated them every single time. Where others waver, she stands firm, smiling her way through, doing her knitting like Madame Defarge at their executions.

Sure she can lose the election. I can’t deny that. But that’s a long way off now and 80-odd days is a long time in politics, for anyone.

Life, love and politics are about people, individuals, not spreadsheets. Gillard understands that. Perhaps she has no choice but to understand it. By continually making a mockery of her critics she infuriates them further.

Another Golden Rule then comes into play: it’s far better to fight cool than hot.

In the meantime, get on with your knitting.

Gillard Knitting #1

1,090 thoughts on “The art of knitting”

  4. Asquith ‏@TraceyAsquith 14m
    Tony Abbott’s sister is tweeting what we know. If Rudd elected then the LNP will flay him alive for being a traitor. Don’t do it ALP voteJG

  6. The enemy is Murdoch, george.

    The LNP is his political arm. It’s them we can and must vote against.

  9. The worst bit is that I wasn’t even able to urge my local MP to vote for Julia Gillard, because Rudd is my local member. Frustration writ large.

  11. SwannyDPM 1h
    In all my yrs in politics, I’ve never met anyone with a Labor heart like @juliagillard’s. Hers is a true Labor Govt driven by Labor values.

    Retweeted by Tracey Asquith
    Expand Reply
    Retwe

  12. I haven’t ever liked Shorten, right back to Beaconsfield. He seemed then to make sure he was in the limelight, the ‘go to man’ of the disaster.

  22. Jaycee, an emotional response, but one I entirely agree with. The important thing is that Gillard, and to some extent the country independents, brought integrity and values back into government.

    We’ve just got to hope our caucus is strong enough to remember that. It’s a government to be proud of and a record to defend.

  23. I have a lot of time for shorten for his work for disability. i think he is doing this for what he thinks are good reasons. it is still a bastard act though. the fckn murdochia drove the polls down to get what they wanted, a divided ALP.

  24. Shorten is a Jesuit. From a Catholics perspective, that”s enough. He has confirmed that he wil never,ever be PM .

  25. { What kind of organism? Bacteria? Amoeba? Vertebrate or spineless jellyfish? }

    With Annebelle, one can never be totally sure. Her excitement is almost overwhelming her tonight.

  28. I joined the Labor party in 1974 as an 18 yr old when I met Don Dunstan at an apprentices function. I have donated every month, even when I wasn’t sure if I had enough money to last me to next pay. If PMJG loses then that is it for me, no more.

  29. Hi All,
    I don’t believe that Shorten has jumped ship!!! What is the matter with these people? No guts no balls & NO vote from me for their turning on the best P.M this country has ever had.

    I thought that LOYALTY was a big part of Labors Mantra…..Guess I was wrong. 😦

    But hey hold the faith people. It ain’t over till it’s over & it ain’t over yet 🙂

  31. Would you blieve thst just as the spill was about to break I got called aout to a road traffic accident in the township. I have just got back.
    So it’s a cage match. Did Rudd accept the win or quit condition?

  32. denese, I’m angry.

    Not hot sparky all-over-in-a-minute angry, and all ok tomorrow.

    This is cold, deep anger, that isn’t likely to go away for a long long time.

  34. HaveAChat

    I’m with you.

    There is NO way I’ll support whiteanting, treachery and disloyalty.

    Rudd, Shorten et al can go F#*k themselves.

  35. Swan ‏@SwannyDPM 1h
    .@JuliaGillard is the toughest person I know – she’s a remarkable PM who I know will beat Tony Abbott on Sept 14

    Retweeted by Tracey Asquith

  36. { Shorten’s a clever bastard: he’ll be leading Labor after the election if Rudd wins tonight. ]

    That was my thoughts too. Shorten has been positioning himself for an eventual run for the Leadership for more than three years.

    If anyone gets in the way of that, they just become collateral damage! 😉

  38. Well labor will get such a thumping with milky bar kid at the helm that Shorten will be LOTO for a VERY LONG TIME.

  41. PTMD Tick
    Jaycee Tick
    msadventure2 Tick
    C@tmomma Tick

    This is heart-in-mouth stuff.

  45. I hope so too Denese. The way I feel now I will actually enjoy watching abbott trounce Rudd.

  46. The one thing I worried about with Shorten was that one of his closest friends was John Roskam. It’s hard to think of too many that are blatant enemies of Labor.

    However … Their friendship had thier origins in university days. That can throw up some odd friendships. Susan Mitchell, a left-wing writer and journo remained fairly close to Christopher Pearson through his life, even though they didn’t see a lot of each other with him in Adelaide and her in Sydney.

    I’ve seen nothing to fault him in his ministerial work. Until now the Ruddistas hated him because of his support of the revolt against Rudd. Goodness what forced him to retreat to Rudd.

  50. A pox on the houses of murdoch,jones, hadley, gina, peta , Abbott et al, Rudd et al, did I miss anyone.
    A sad day for democracy.
    Vale Julia. Best PM ever.

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