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PM down but not out
Eliot 发表于 2007-09-20 01:15:00
Tuesday, September 18, 2007, 4:40 PM AEDST
PM down but not out
Coalition MPs are ecstatic today. Instead of facing electoral annihilation, they’re merely facing massive defeat. Such is the weird, poll-driven mood embracing Canberra at the moment.
Today’s Newspoll puts Labor ahead 55% to 45% - still landslide territory - but markedly down on the massive 18%-point gap the same poll described a fortnight ago. The Coalition’s position has recovered from hopeless to marginally competitive. Its primary vote is up to 41% - the highest for many months. The coalition is again within the same sort of range Paul Keating was able to recover from back in 1993.
More importantly, today’s poll stabilises the government and allows it to move into the election end game as a unified team. If today’s poll had confirmed the last Newspoll, there would have been a real danger of the government coming apart.
Instead, the poll will lock the Liberal party in behind John Howard, who must now regret blinking last week and declaring he would hand over to Peter Costello at some time during the next term. Now Howard’s leadership again looks unassailable. That’s reinforced by this Newspoll also canvassing who would make the best Coalition leader: John Howard 52%; Peter Costello 18%; Malcolm Turnbull 12%. That should settle the nervous nellies.
And for Peter Costello and his supporters there is no longer any incentive to agitate. They know Howard is the best chance of getting the government over the line, while having his promise to hand over the leadership in the back pocket.
And yet there is a little piece of poison for Peter Costello in this poll. Costello leads Turnbull as preferred coalition leader 18% to 12 %, but amongst voters 50 years and over, Turnbull leads 17% to Costello’s 11%. Some of this reflects the different priorities of older Australians, but it may also reflect the fact they watch more TV news and read more broadsheet newspapers. It may be, as a relative political newcomer, Turnbull’s name recognition has penetrated the older demographic but is yet to do so amongst younger voters.
There is a real chance, of course, that all this angst has been caused by a rogue poll. After remaining strangely unmoved by current events for months on end, it seems a bit hard to believe that Labor went from a 10% lead to an 18% lead and back again in the space of four weeks. It’s more likely this poll is merely returning to a more accurate reading of the electorate.
If that is so, then there is some good news in this poll for Labor, above and beyond the 10-point gap in the two-party preferred vote. Eight weeks out from the 2004 election, 51% of Labor voters said they were locked into voting for Mark Latham. This latest poll has 61% of Labor voters locked in behind Kevin Rudd. Only about 12% of Labor’s vote can be described as soft.
There is an imperative, therefore, for John Howard to call the election, before too many more Labor voters become rusted on. That must be balanced by the need for the government to realign its campaign advertising to sell the new leadership duopoly. John Howard is likely to wait another week, but then it could be on, with November the 3rd and November the 10th now seen in Canberra as likely election dates.
Today’s Newspoll puts Labor ahead 55% to 45% - still landslide territory - but markedly down on the massive 18%-point gap the same poll described a fortnight ago. The Coalition’s position has recovered from hopeless to marginally competitive. Its primary vote is up to 41% - the highest for many months. The coalition is again within the same sort of range Paul Keating was able to recover from back in 1993.
More importantly, today’s poll stabilises the government and allows it to move into the election end game as a unified team. If today’s poll had confirmed the last Newspoll, there would have been a real danger of the government coming apart.
Instead, the poll will lock the Liberal party in behind John Howard, who must now regret blinking last week and declaring he would hand over to Peter Costello at some time during the next term. Now Howard’s leadership again looks unassailable. That’s reinforced by this Newspoll also canvassing who would make the best Coalition leader: John Howard 52%; Peter Costello 18%; Malcolm Turnbull 12%. That should settle the nervous nellies.
And for Peter Costello and his supporters there is no longer any incentive to agitate. They know Howard is the best chance of getting the government over the line, while having his promise to hand over the leadership in the back pocket.
And yet there is a little piece of poison for Peter Costello in this poll. Costello leads Turnbull as preferred coalition leader 18% to 12 %, but amongst voters 50 years and over, Turnbull leads 17% to Costello’s 11%. Some of this reflects the different priorities of older Australians, but it may also reflect the fact they watch more TV news and read more broadsheet newspapers. It may be, as a relative political newcomer, Turnbull’s name recognition has penetrated the older demographic but is yet to do so amongst younger voters.
There is a real chance, of course, that all this angst has been caused by a rogue poll. After remaining strangely unmoved by current events for months on end, it seems a bit hard to believe that Labor went from a 10% lead to an 18% lead and back again in the space of four weeks. It’s more likely this poll is merely returning to a more accurate reading of the electorate.
If that is so, then there is some good news in this poll for Labor, above and beyond the 10-point gap in the two-party preferred vote. Eight weeks out from the 2004 election, 51% of Labor voters said they were locked into voting for Mark Latham. This latest poll has 61% of Labor voters locked in behind Kevin Rudd. Only about 12% of Labor’s vote can be described as soft.
There is an imperative, therefore, for John Howard to call the election, before too many more Labor voters become rusted on. That must be balanced by the need for the government to realign its campaign advertising to sell the new leadership duopoly. John Howard is likely to wait another week, but then it could be on, with November the 3rd and November the 10th now seen in Canberra as likely election dates.
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