Argument about the merits of the Great Debate continued today with a depressing News Poll for Team Howard. Kevin07 primary vote is up, Rudd as Preferred PM is up and 2PP is up. The salt in the wound is that the gap between the teams on economic credibility and trust has further narrowed.
A News Pollster was speculating on 774 that Kevin07 cunningly planned the release of their tax policy for Friday in order to get a quick jump in the weekend’s survey for Newspoll and make Team Howard look bad. These people get paid for making this shit up? After Team Howard’s surprise tax announcement last Monday (apparently catching their own campaign team ill-prepared to make hay with it) Team Howard were saying to anyone who would listen “We’ve got a tax plan! Has Kevin got a tax plan? No! He’s too chicken!”. The MSM commentariat’s collective opinion was that Kevin better get a tax plan announced before The Great Debate or the sky will fall in. So Kevin gives them a tax policy earlier than he would have liked, and now it’s all a fiendishly clever ploy to manipulate the polls!
The MSM narrative continues that the poll results are not real, they couldn’t be. The Labor vote is soft, the latest poll is consistent with previous ones, Margin of Error, Noise, blah, blah. Ockam’s Razer says the simplest explanation is usually the best. The electorate just don’t like the Coalition anymore and are going to kick their sorry arses out of government. The Nielson pollster says if the polls are still like this in two weeks they’re stuffed.
Both teams were out and about handing out money to all kinds of regional and minor funding schemes. The big announcement of the day is Howard’s gesture towards the gray vote – if you are a pensioner you can now claim up to $500 for utility payments per year. That’s right, everyone else gets at least a grand through tax and the old diggers get $9 a week, but only if it’s spent on gas and electricity. In The Great Debate, Howard criticised Kevin’s childcare tax rebate by saying it’s always better to give the money back through taxation and let people decide what they need to spend it on. The government has no business interfering with how people spend money. Except if you are a pensioner. What if you are self-sufficient in utilities and would rather have the extra money to buy some extra cans of cat food?
Costello reckons the Child Care rebate will push child care prices up. Like the time he handed out $3,500 to parents for each child only to see it instantly absorbed into ABC Learning’s shareholder’s dividends in a classic text-book demonstration of the laws of supply and demand. Brilliant ‘economic management’ that one – especially if you thought to buy shares.
David Hick returned with a new story implicating US VP Cheney and PM Howard in cooking up a solution to the ‘Hicks problem’ before the election. And for good measure they offered to throw in a free Federal control-order for him on release.
While half of Southern California is engulfed in the firestorm from hell, background debate continues aplenty with much grumbling and hand-wringing over nuclear energy and water management, keeping climate change burning in everyone’s mind.
Costello’s planning to take on Swan and The Worm next week to debate The Economy. Despite Team Howard’s carefully cultivated narrative that Swan’s stupidity is exceeded only by his ignorance, Swan, a former academic, is a smooth and articulate operator. It can only end in tears for Team Howard as Swan will be briefed by the best brains in the country. Costello will still sound like a smarmy university student politician with lousy debating skills beyond sledging and ad hominems.
The pensioners will be less than impressed with Howard’s largess, Kevin07 won the debate about the debate and look like continuing to climb in the polls. Atmospherically, the ball was still with Kevin07.
Cross posted from Blogotariat.
Filed under: Federal Election 2007, Politics
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