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March 16, 2007
There has been a concerted negative campaign being launched by the Coalition against the ALP in the form of dirt attacks on Kevin Rudd: they started with Brian Burke dinner affair and have broadened to mudslinging on the Opposition Leader's Catholic faith, his family's eviction from their farm, and the circumstances of his father's tragic death.
Bill Leak
It is a campaign that bears the hallmarks of the Republican style negative personal tactics in the US--though not as nasty; a campaign based on personal attacks that shifts attention away from issues of public concern. Since politics has become 24/7, 12-months-a-year campaigns in an increasingly polarized electorate, negative campaigning is set to become more central to political campaigning in the looming 2008 elections.
Dennis Glover, writing in The Australian describes the way the character bashing works:
The methods used to generate such material and channel it to the public, known in the trade as opposition research, are also well known: focus testing to identify the opponent's strengths to undermine and weaknesses to exploit; the establishment of a dirt unit to uncover irregularities about their past, including lists of enemies willing to talk to the press; the feeding of attack points to backbenchers and friendly journalists, to ensure it is all done at arm's length from the party leadership; and push polling and whispering campaigns to conduct character assassination under the radar.
The operation is designed to place Rudd under increasing psychological pressure until he cracks and reveals an unfitness for leadership---as Latham did with his 'will you lay off my family?" press conference. The game of politics is a social Darwinian survival of the fittest.
I presume that we will see increasing use of microtargeting with new media technology like blogs, podcasts and Internet banner ads, whilst the Coalition ads are more likely to t denigrate the personal character of the opposing candidate than those of the ALP.
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The above alludes to what was at the essence of Santoro's fall.
He wasn't donating to "charity!
He was deviously funding an organisation in tune with his political prejudices; likely to be of help in pushing acceptance of conservative fertility and sexuality policy during the electoral cycle and likely to be vocal come election time.
The great shame is that he deserved sacking for it, but the subtleties would have normally eluded the wider public.
However, his arrogance had caused him to snub other rules that also rightly apply to politicians, also on on the basis of conflict of interest, so he inadvertantly fell anyway.
But for the reason he should have fallen?