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.
“
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.
THE PUB 
That’s it for me, my association with the ALP has finished as of now.
Puffy TMD
AMEN to that!!
What a shame. Murdoch has won.
That’s it.
The Parliamentary ALP has committed suicide.
Like many on this excellent blog, it will be a long time if ever, that I return to politics
Well stuff me!
Looks like we are going to have Minister Mirabella.
Well done Labor!
No reason for The Pub to evaporate: we have dragons (sorry, puff) to kill.
So so sad!
Well, that is it for me – I no longer support Labor.
ALP …you’ve broken my heart …bullies/cowards + Murdoch win
I think I’ll vote National.
barstards all our work all for nothing,
And the Parliament House page is down, so I can’t figure out if the house is still running. I don’t know what happens next.
I feel numb at the moment.
Somewhere in Mordor, Sauron is smiling.
Thanks Labor (not). I will not support them until Rudd’s corrosive influence is purged from the party.
Mr Rudd and his collaborators can get well and truly fucked!
Speechless
tomorrow morning I cancel my donation to Labor”s election campaign. I might even ask for a refund.
Fiona,
Nazguls, Orcs, Wargs, Shelob …
We cannot allow a Puff Adder to become a minister. We must unite and make sure this does not happen.
Meh – such a senseless waste of talent.
Enjoy what’s left of your leadership, Rudd.
Oh well I have mud on my face. Had a big discussion with some of our pool players, I was of course sticking up for Julia and declaring there will be no spill. 😳 👿 😥
Just hope this decision is not as bad for the party as I fear it is. Very personally disappointed. We will now have a real life test of whether hypothetical opinion polls are worth anything and I fear we will find they are as flawed as most of us think.
If Rudd does win the election I will have to concede the change didn’t do any immediate electoral damage (although I think it’s damaged the party in the long run) but I won’t ever be convinced that Julia Gillard couldn’t have won it.
Oh, and fuck the media and the coalition.
Just sent the first of my emails to ALP members.
Well, that is if for me, my association with the Labor Party is finished. I shall no longer donate to them, nor will I do any volunteer work for them again. As of tonight the party is no longer my party and my votes will be donkey ones, they won’t even get cast of votes from anyone else.
A party that rewards back biting mongrels shall never be my party.
I have rung them to cancel my regular donation but no one is answering the phone, so I am now doing it in writing, at the same time I am resigning from the party and I am now cancelling my monthly donation.
I am out of the party until after the election of Tony Abbott PM. Then the task of rebuilding begins
Time for a new party. There should be plenty of disgusted Labor voters (and MPs) ready and willing to get a true Labor party going. Sadly not in time for the election, but next time, who knows?
This Labor Party is now dead.
Suddenly, according to Uhlmann and Simkin, Rudd is the Devil.
Leigh Sales is tittering with joy.
Rob Oakeshott was right about “ugly Australia” – the bogans have won!
Swan, Conroy, Emerson, Gillard gone. JFC!
57-45 Rudd. I’m devastated. Rewarding a traitor and a coward. What has our party and our country come to? I weep for the loss of a great leader.
Oh well. It will allow me to move away from politics and get on with other aspects of my life. I still believe we could have won.
It is a scandal, the whole sorry episode.
Now we will soon see the worth of the Rudd v Abbott polls leading up to this.
I may have to resort to serious swearing.
Can’t see Garrett staying.
ALP BROKEN OUR HEARTS OUR SPIRIT OUR COUNTYR
BEMUSED CAN RUN PB NOW
I still have West Side Story threaded up and ready to roll, Dunny.
Penny Wong?
No way that’s going to happen, Denese. Don’t worry about Bemused coming back.
I think I’ll take up knitting.
our party and our country come to? I weep for the loss of a great leader.
Oh well. It will allow me to move away from politics and get on with other aspects of my life. I still believe we could have won.
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It is a scandal, the whole sorry episode–
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OUR DARLING JULIA WILL HAVE TO MOVE OUT OF THE LODGE AND LIVES
—————————————————————————‘WISH SHE HAD NOT CALLED THE SPILL
Zooks like th Footy Show is doiing street talk on ABC24.
ABC24 doing vox pops.
About as useless as tits on a bull.
Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
I just got home and this will be short
Vent all you want now ,
Think things through tommorow
The blog will continue if you wish it to. It’s really up to you
Zooks = Looks + two other frenetic typos!
Crude, cynical, gutless, stand-for-nothing, superficial, poll-driven bullshit. That’s enough for me and politics for a while.
The empty suits have won . All those that believe in karma it does not work the low lifes win, Can the people who do such a great job running this site set every comments with a black band around every comment. The forces of darkness have only won the first round.
joe
This blog MUST continue!
Didn’t they listen this morning? Oakshott and Windsor said they round not support Rudd. So tomorrow night we will have PM Abbott. WELL DONE ARSEHOLES.
Another problem in the upcoming confidence vote.
If Julia Gillard resigns from politics tonight, then she won’t be able to vote in the house, making one less vote for Labor.
This boosts the chance of Rudd entering the election as Opposition Leader.
GD
u know I felt a weight come off my shoulder why would that be
may be because I cared so so much and now I don’t,
I have emailed juiie Collins and told her to take me off the list for volunteering I am true to my word and I will vote imformlly
thank for you company=
Face it people.Julia is now out of politics.
As of now. This minute. This instant.
She won’t stand for re-election.
What she should do is piss off and enjoy herself. On Monday.
No campaign. No sexist slurs. No Abbott to contend with. She never has to work again.
Enjoy yourself lady.
You deserve it.
To mix languages… “Vale,and bonne chance.”