Question: What's more terrifying than having conservative columnist Rita Panahi railing at the system from the outside?
Answer: Having her terrorising it from within. Which is exactly what the Liberal Party's Victorian president Michael Kroger would like to see happen. Or at least that's his current position.
Kroges has entreated Panahi to throw her hat into the ring of the division's upcoming preselections (it's like Oscars season, but for socially awkward people of limited functional ability).
The emerging Herald Sun columnist, whose imitation of Andrew Bolt leaves even Him blushing, has had Kroger in her ear whispering the cursed name of Frankston. Many a deplorable to be found riding that train line!
The other one in Kroger's basket of tricks is the Legislative Council's Western Metro spot, currently held by Bernie Finn, so conservative he considers Bolt a fugitive member of the Grateful Dead.
Kroger controls the numbers in neither electorate. Yet his Panahi ingratiation project has been a long and ardent one. Finely sculpted eyebrows were raised and twin-set pearls jiggled last month at the Liberal Women's Council when she took the lectern as Christmas guest speaker. Kroger loves a name, and increasingly Panahi is one, particularly among the party's bored old ladies. Mr Albrechtsen has had far stupider ideas than slotting an anti-Pauline reactionary sheila into the Liberals' armoury.
No date is yet set for the vote in Frankston, though Finn's upper house spot will be finalised by the end of March. Then, Panahi has until November next year before facing the southern provincials.
Constituents of Frankston: you have been warned.
