rant ...

Howard's gone

In recent weeks I've realised that I dearly wanted Howard to contest the next election and lose. That is, I wanted his party to lose government and I wanted him to suffer the personal defeat of his own seat. I couldn't conjure any sympathy for him, he's caused enough pain and anguish over the last years that I can't see he deserves any. For a while I thought that my wish would come true, but now, with Rudd riding high in the polls, it appears I won't get my wish.

Here's my prediction: Howard won't make it to the election.

He's taken a battering in his own party this week and has ended up admitting that he's likely to resign at some point in his next term (if he gets that far). Every way you look at it this admission spells his doom. In the view of the wider electorate he's told them his Prime Minister-ship is done, which only confirms the general view in the polls. In terms of the campaign, he's dismantled the image they want to present of having a vision for the future. Every promise they try to make will be crippled by the acknowledgement he may no longer be there to see the promise implemented. It'll be the core/non-core promise thing all over again.

It's led to extraordinary headlines in the media: "Downer backs Costello". When the party is trying to demonstrate they're a united team, why would one of Howard's closest allies be championing his supposed successor? Any political adviser would say this is a nonsense message to be sending to the electorate, however well-intentioned it might be. So here we have Howard, one of the sharpest political minds in Australian history, reduced to sending nonsense messages to the public. I can only reach the conclusion they've completely lost the plot. For Labor, it's a gift from heaven and they barely need to say a word.

So what happens now? Well, the Liberals will try to spin this nonsense as earnestly as they can while Howard turns his mind to some way of salvaging his shattered credibility. Then next week the next poll will be published and after all of these antics, it's easy to speculate it will be the worst of the year. At that point, the government will fall into disarray again as any remaining faith in Howard will be lost. The leadership speculation will flare up again and the government will be fighting fires again instead of trying to sell their vote-for-us message. You can't win elections if you can't get your message out. Even if Howard survives next week, he won't be able to climb out of this loop of bad polls feeding leadership speculation which then feeds more bad polls. To get out of the downward spiral, they need to force a change.

I give it two weeks and Howard will either resign or be pushed.

Posted by david at September 13, 2007 9:21 PM