This is why I thought she should have waited until she scored a win of some kind. She is in the absurd position of trying to run on the record of the guy she ousted, which is a terrible place to stand.

Actually, a Rudd supporter is a more likely source than Rudd himself. A lot of people lost power in the change, and politicians really hate losing power. Family fights are much nastier than feuds between families. It will be years or decades before people finally know what the real cause was for removing Rudd, and it will probably turn out to be some petty perceived slight that Rudd wasn’t even aware off.

Answering “domestic dispute” calls is dangerous because you can’t tell who is on what side, and you have to be able to suspend logic so you don’t say something like “you were going to kill him over damage to an ugly lamp?” When you step back, World War I really was a “domestic dispute”. The people in charge on all sides were first cousins, grandchildren of Queen Victoria.

Yesterday, in her press conference, Gillard made a bad tactical mistake and let slip answering a question from the press that they were *now* seeing the *real* Julia Gillard. Of course, Abbott today was all over that, and made the point everyone has known, but not wanted to think much about, that if Gillard is elected… Who do we actually get? Nobody knows who here real backers are and who helped her kick Rudd out. People are worried about that.

Some of todays headlines include:

Crikey Says: Crikey says: we’re asking for it
Crikey Subscriber / Monday, 2 August 2010

As we go to press, Sky News is discussing whether Day 1 of the Really Real Julia Gillard is any different to Days 1-15 of Not Very Real, Not Fake, but Sort of Watered Down and Possibly on Prozac Prime Minister.

Shanahan: Julia hits the panic button
The Australian / Monday, 2 August 2010

It’s no wonder that Julia Gillard has brought out a scare campaign against Abbott: she can no longer win off her own personal appeal, says Dennis Shanahan.

Keane’s Talking Points: this election is now the Liberals’ to lose
Crikey Subscriber / Bernard Keane / Monday, 2 August 2010

The first two weeks of this campaign evidently started with Gillard being given ground Valium on her cereal every morning. As of today, she’s off the meds…

Not your usual Cabinet leak
Crikey / Bernard Keane / Wednesday, 28 July 2010

Julia Gillard gave her best performance of the campaign this morning in response to Laurie Oakes’ damaging leaks story, but the problem isn’t going to go away.

Leaks tarnish Gillard’s shine
Crikey / Amber Jamieson / Wednesday, 28 July 2010

Daily Media Wrap Another night, another Laurie Oakes bombshell. Last night the Nine Network stalwart revealed the allegation that Julia Gillard opposed the government’s paid parental leave and a rise to the pension during cabinet meetings when she was deputy.

As can be seen, the focus is currently on some damning leaks about Gillard when she was Dep. PM. The bookies are currently favoring Rudd as the leaker. Payback is such a bitch! 😆

If the election were this weekend, Abbott would win. For Gillard to win, she’d have to take a page out of the GOP Playbook and start a major war with someone! *sigh*

I have no idea how convince people to go beyond slogans and figure out why things are screwed up, and who is to blame. There is so much propaganda being spewed, much of it to ensure that people don’t figure out what is going on.

How hard is it to figure out that “conservatives” keeping doing the same things, and those things keep failing.

Really?? Ya think?!! DUH! See… you know more about our Politics than our current PM does! I’m def gonna vote for you! 😆

“Abbott strikes me as a bit creepy.”

That’s about the best succinct summation of Abbott I’ve seen. Yup!

Sadly, our current Political system is much the same as yours. We have no leaders in either party. Zero. Zip. Nada.

And yeah, Rudd was a control freak. But he was a very good Diplomat. He got us out of the sh*t after Howard. Australians now have, officially IMHO, the same memory as Americans! *SIGH*

You can welcome us to your club if you wish. It’d be appropriate.

Like the USA, we deserve what we get.

I don’t understand why, when they decided to change leaders, they didn’t go for.. well, a leader.

Abbott strikes me as a bit creepy, just reading about his “exploits”. I keep wondering what they have to do with running a government. They also tend to remind me of GW Bush.

I was expecting her to do something notable before calling an election, as the timing was her choice, and calling it after a win of some kind would have made more sense.

But what do I know, I’m just a guy with a web site watching a corporation destroy my community.

OK. In a nutshell, the problem we now face is:

If Gillard win’s, we get someone who is a truly hopeless manager (she has stuffed up every major project she was given as a Minister, and has no track record with even medium projects before becoming Dep. PM). She also is stubborn, way too *decisive* (the current cooling of relations with what was a good Pacific Island neighbor over the ‘boat people’ even before she’s elected, simply because she didn’t know that the President is just a figure head, and the PM *IS* The Boss and if you want something done there, you deal with the PM (which is the way it is with ALL Commonwealth Nations! You’d think a PM would know that!)

If Abbott is elected, he’d be worse than Howard! He’s like your Neo-con Right Christian extremist. He has no policies he wants to reveal, I’m sure because he knows ordinary voters won’t like them a bit! He’s Pro- big business and the wealthy!

Here’s a few links for perspective:

Gillard faking it on boats: Abbott
Rudd and Gillard’s achievements, stuff-ups and unfinished business
Gillard’s reckless gamble

Unless she does something big soon, or tediously matches Abbott penny for penny and scare for scare and beats him in four debates, she will soon, very quickly, be the shortest-run Prime Minister since Frank Forde.

Yeah… Really! Me… I’m gonna vote for Bryan Dumka for PM! You’d do a lot better than either of them! And I’m not joking.

BTW, Bob Ellis is an old hand political reporter. And his track record is impeccable. *sigh*

If you haven’t seen much of the world, it is difficult to understand other people. I spent a lot of time in Europe when I was in the military, but I wouldn’t presume to know how their system worked, because I wasn’t in the system, I just watched from outside. I know how things work in theory, but that is rarely how they actually work.

Kryten, speaking of politics, is Labor trying to lose to the Liberals? Man, things really seem to be getting scrambled in Oz. The left seems hellbent everywhere on losing.

Hah! That’s a great quote, and ohhhhh… so very true! 😀

If you haven’t seen Jon’s show about it, I encourage anyone to! He really does get to the meat of the matter. 😉

The Daily Show – July 27, 2010 – with guest Fareed Zakaria

You might enjoy (really) the previous episode (July 27 with William Rosen) also. 🙂 It was about why the invention of the steam engine changed the World as it did. And it’s not the reason most people think! 😉 Sometimes… Jon does get a bit ‘cerebral’ with his show. At least… as far as comedic law allows! 😆 He also get’s to the heart of Obama. He’s TRULY from Bizzaro World! Everything he does, is reversed! When he should pause, consider and investigate, he goes ahead like a Bull in heat! When he should go balls ‘n’ all, he does his ‘Timid Timothy, The Compromiser’ thing. The guy is truly ass-backwards! I have zero respect for him.

Honestly… I dunno who is worse! The Decider, or The Compromiser! I suspect this is the USA’s ‘from frying pan into the fire’ time.

You’re absolutely right, it’s an indication of the level to which the situation has deteriorated that being our beloved Brits didn’t absolve BP altogether. Anglophiles? You betcha.

On Southern accents. It was just last week in fact that I heard what a *charming* accent I had. Oh yeah, at least minus 20 points there.

Since you’re a cat person, I’ll leave our Duffy with the following quote:

A person who has a cat by the tail knows a whole lot more about cats than someone who has just read about them. – Mark Twain