Day 30- Depends on your size...

The walrus gets Julia and Cassidy gets Abbott, but the news is the Galaxy poll that runs counter to the last few offerings from Newspoll and Nielson. The headline? Libs are actually infront, thanks to several marginals. The body copy? 4000 polled in 17 key seats, where the swing is enough to give the Opposition the house on their own. The fine print? Over all those seats, the 4000 (which sounds large and conclusive does it not?) actually breaks down to around 200 polled per seat. A poll becomes a poll, as I understand it, when the sample number is over 400. This is not an exhaustive poll. It might be good for Labor though, giving them a target to fight in this final week, ensuring no one is complacent.

Abbott suggests another Rooty Hill style showdown in Qld, and Julia says sure- as long as the first section of the night is a debate on the economy. Abbott says no. It's a great wedge from Abbott, and an equally great counter wedge from the PM. How will it look? It would seem to these 4 eyes that Abbott will suffer- Julia is giving him what he wants, and he's still running from the economy. But maybe the same can be said for the PM's refusal to just accept something in which she suffered from last week. It's a tough ol game, this claim and counter claim stuff. Takers a lot of energy, energy that might be otherwise used for ideas. Btw, the twits following Abbott spoke of his presser this afternoon, where he took only 12 questions, and would not explain why he wouldn't debate her realness. The twits were unpleased by the performance. The word pathetic was repeatedly tweeted.

Speaking of pathetic

I first heard of Mark Latham when I was a wee young thing, reading a Good Weekend article sometime in the 19th century which suggested he was the next great Labor man, the son of Chifley and Whitlam (shared test tube I spose), the chosen true believer. What a fucken joke he has become. I wrote a few days ago that he can veer from making the most pure sense to coming up all crazy on yo ass within a blink. Well, I was being polite. These last few days, indeed these last few outings since he implored Rudd to 'man up' and own the leaks, have been nothing but displays of ugly, bitter illness. It was either Andrew Denton or Chris Taylor who said, when interviewing him some years ago, that he seems to absolutely breathe the old Labor ideal, and yet be unable to communicate it- to indeed, be in polite company and play the requisite games. Which was shorthand for- you're a bit bi-polar fella, grab some help. And so it has gone and so he is. 

Gimmicky, moi? Via Fairfax.

Thing is, there might be something in the message for viewers of 60 Minutes. The politicians are stage managed! They're not fair dinkum! They've got no ideas! Stuff of rare insight champ. Except, once again, you're not the man to tell that story- because you're the man that once signed a big cheque. Your biggest policy success involved mandatory reading to children (where you, sir, participated in several photo-ops, just like the ones you ridiculed this evening). If it had been spun as a story of ones man's emergence into the light, after being manhandled by the machines, a mea culpa, a true look behind the curtain, that might've done something. But Latham's ego is far too vast for such apologies, and the take away messages were- at least Pauline Hanson was real, and you all should vote donkey. Tonight's stab for attention for this stay at home dad (what a delight it must be to live in that house!) was odious. Just horrible. Yes, he made points- he can do that. We all can. It's neither here nor there when his lack of grace poisons all he says. Go away.