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November 15, 2007
After the Labor launch yesterday Andrew Bolt conceded on behalf of John Howard. He live blogged the event and, for Bolt, was quite generous in his assessment. His fans are furious, which suggests they also suspect that "Howard can start packing now". Bolt concludes "Play it safe from here on, and Labor has won".
The symbolism was perfect, from Whitlam, Hawke and Keating burying their differences for the occasion to Kevin remembering his wedding anniversary. Nostalgia for the party faithful and suburban sentimentality for the masses.
A the end of the John Show an appropriate assortment of important people climbed up on stage to stand with Howard. We know they'd all rather bury forks in their own thighs than spend time with one another, but there they were, smiling, waving and trying to look comfortable. Janette was first up, although it's not as though it was a race.
At the end of the Kevin Show the man of the moment left the stage on his own and went to Therese, who hadn't moved. We were treated to footage of an empty stage and a room full of happy people, one of whom was Kevin. High symbolism, but the real question is how many gold ties will be sold over the coming days?
This whole election thing had been sliding into tedium with a daily grind of confusing and pointless to-ing and fro-ing over which mile of road was worth an upgrade and which school would get a new roof on the toilet block. It's been like watching a cockroach refuse to die for hours on end. But yesterday livened things up a bit.
Howard made a pitch to private school parents seeking to promote division (again) and did his level best to paint Labor as a risky proposition, without too much success. If the response in the blogosphere is any indication, Kevin has given the whole election an energy boost even Shanahan grudgingly acknowledges.
Tim Dunlop has a roundup of the usual media suspects who are all fired up but seem to be having problems spotting the negatives. Give them time. Of course, what the opinion columnists think doesn't tell us anything other than what the opinion columnists think. But they do have a small moon effect on the tide of morale.
Liberal HQ must be a depressing place to be at the moment. There'll be some frenzied polling going on and the bookies will be busy. Simon Jackman says the odds in the marginals have started to look more like the polls.
We're nearly there. Nine more sleeps. Then we can wake up on the 25th November and wonder what we've let ourselves in for.
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I am expecting the whimper, not the bang. Still comparing the two "campaign launch" speeches, by Howard and Rudd, and reading between the lines. there are important qualitative differences e.g. statements about foreign policy and indigenous affairs. So maybe the lights will turned back on, and the long dark age of Australian politics will be over for the time being.