24 thoughts on “Will Bomber bounce back?”

  1. That’s funny, I was thinking exactly the same thing. The scenario goes like this: Labor plummets in the polls; caucus, in despair and desperation, reaches for Beazley just as Howard is driving out to see what’s his name at Yarralumla and get the election called.

    Beazley fulfils his destiny, which is to emulate Evatt and Calwell in leading Labor to three consecutive election defeats.

  2. Can there be another split in the ALP?The figures are looking bad for Latham, but can he resurrect the numbers. He has so many things with which to bash Howard over the head.Unfortunately, it looks like he is removing the biggest one (AUSFTA).
    Maybe the pressure from the US is too great to ignore, which leads me to become more and more convinced there was something about the removal of the Withlam Govt. and the planting of one Mr. Kemlani.

  3. You underestimate Bomber’s ambition. If the ALP keeps making decisions like this Bomber can aspire to do a reverse Menzies and lose 7 elections in a row.

  4. I’ll share the same cup that led you to your first sentence, however don’t pass me the stuff that led you to posing the question in the second.

    You know you mustn’t inhale!

    However, as a former True Believer, but now a True Hopeful, I think anything’s possible. (But not that … surely!?)

    Drover’s dog day afternoons are long past.

  5. I’ll share the same cup that led you to your first sentence, however don’t pass me the stuff that led you to posing the second. You know I don’t inhale!

    However, as a former True Believer, but now a True Hopeful (borderline True Wishful Thinker), I figure anything’s possible. (But not that … surely!?)

    Drover’s dog day afternoons are long past.

  6. Sorry for the double posting (I usually only do that down at our local polling booth) but I got kicked off line twixt the cup and the lip.

    Edit at will.

  8. There would have to be a catastrophic decline in the polls for this to happen. Its not impossible since Latham has just lost the green constituency he sought to build by conning Garrett into a seat. Unbelievably, he has just given all his green second preferences to the democrats, whose fortunes are now revived. Beasley doesnt have a chance, he is a loser.. but then if you were a labor state premier you wouldnt give a dam if he did become a leader. Gloomy is the most pleasant way of putting it! I am still somewhat stunned by the Coalitions perfectly targeted missle that has initiated a meltdown in the ALP.

  9. I think this is one of those issues where the so-called opinion elite is out of touch with Australia. Latham has made the right call. Beazley is a top defence person and will provide sterling service in that role.

  11. As TH argues Beazley is a top defence person and it is one of Latham’s few good calls from a policy perspective so far. The problem with the Labor party is the lack of talent currently in it relative when the first Hawke government came to power. Beasley, for all his faults, also has the virtue of being more pro-American and less naïve about the dangers of Islamic extremism than most in the party or the vast majority of contributors to this blog. Rudd looked good at one stage but his attempts to defend Latham’s pull out strategy have just made him look ridiculous. To get better quality people in the party the factional system clearly needs to be got rid of and superior candidates chosen from outside of the party. The problem is that most academics and social activists are as prone to attaching themselves to rigid ideological positions as 12 year olds to good looking pop singers. So what is the answer I am not so sure apart from cloning Tony Blair.

  13. Bomber won’t make a come back until the failure of drafting Carr occurs.

  15. I thought the same thing this afternoon,driving home from the building site,.
    I saw beazley on sunday morning TV talking about foreign policy and defence,he is much more convincing than latham.
    Latham is an ignoramus when it comes to anything outside the western suburbs-we had a violent disagreement over east timor some yrs ago.He rang me and told me to get fucked!!!

  16. Hey Pr Q, quit bagging Latham! Beazley would have been a safer, although duller, bet as Opposition leader.
    But nothing the ALP can serve up would do against Howard. Latham is up against an effective candidate, resting on a reasonably good record with no festering scandals damaging the Ministry. To beat that is a Big Ask for any Opposition.
    None of the potential ALP candidates could best Howard, except Bob McMullan who is in the Senate.
    But Latham is certainly not as good as the ALP could get. His weakness as a candidate is now showing up in the polls. The Coalition is now clearly ahead of the ALP in primary vote, and nothing in it on two-party preferred vote. And, thanks mainly to the strength of the Man of Steel, the trend is definitely in the Tory direction.

    For the first time in two months the Coalition has opened a clear lead over Labor in the primary vote, 45 to 40 per cent, according to the latest Newspoll.
    At the same time, Mr Howard, who has turned 65 since the last survey, edged further ahead of Mr Latham as the preferred prime minister, 51 to 34 per cent.
    Although the latest Newspoll, conducted exclusively for The Australian, shows that Labor could win the election on preference votes and in the marginal seats, the trend on primary votes since June is going the Coalition’s way.

    I predicted a Howard victory in 2003, and I am sticking to that prediction.
    The next election is going to be won on Howards record of “good governance” in the “Un-Holy Trinity” of key issues:
    economic prosperity
    strategic security
    civic identity
    It is unlikely that anything in the way of new policies or personalities would have saved the ALP, given Howard’s:
    prolongation of the economic-prospering housing bubble;
    shoring up of the strategic-securing AUS-US alliance and
    triumph in the civic-identifying Culture Wars.
    Any takers?

  20. Bob McMullan is unfortunately afflicted by too much obvious intelligence, and therefore doesn’t “connect” with the voters. It’s their loss, as he would make an excellent PM and would be on the first 11 of any cabinet in the last century.

  21. Trust me on this JQ, Kevin Rudd is serious bad news. That should be pretty clear if you watch him closely. He’s widely disliked for his remarkably unpleasant self regarding manner in private even more than in public. He’s reached his level of competence as a senior front bencher. As a leader, he’d be pure poison.

  22. Against the FTA
    Labor has capitulated and agreed in principle to the FTA. As my lovely fiance pointed out, we need an opposition that actually opposes, not one who simply offers a

  23. Darkness reaches for the darkness
    “It’s started raining” exclaimed the flight attendent upon opening the plane’s door late tonight. Yes, I’m back in Melbourne. Back Pages is bad enough, but don’t go over to John Quiggin’s place, where the good professor seems to be taking…

  24. Darkness reaches for the darkness
    “It’s started raining” exclaimed the flight attendent upon opening the plane’s door late tonight. Yes, I’m back in Melbourne. Back Pages is bad enough, but don’t go over to John Quiggin’s place, where the good professor seems to be taking…

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