Metablogging

Winning the unwinnable?

John Quiggin8 Comments

I was reading a fairly sensible analysis of the UK election in The Economist when I came across this

There are echoes in this of a campaign involving Lynton Crosby, Mr Howard’s chief strategist, in Australia in 1996. It looked as though the Labor prime minister, Paul Keating, could not lose the election—until his opponent, John Howard, suggested that the electorate use its voice to “send a messageâ€? to Mr Keating. The tactic worked, and John Howard won a surprise victory.

As i recall it, the only person at all surprised by the election outcome was Paul Keating. And the only catchphrase i can remember from the campaign was “relaxed and comfortable”.

8 thoughts on “Winning the unwinnable?”

  1. The Economist sometimes just gets Australia fiercely wrong, doesn’t it? I seem to recall that their coverage of the 1998 Waterfront Dispute was also askew. When I lived in the US, I’d often get insights into US politics from the Economist that I didn’t get from the daily US papers, but I’ve never had that sense with its coverage of Australia. The single-correspondent problem, I suppose.

  3. Andrew’s comments says more about the deficiencies of US daily papers than about the Economist.

    I know we’ve all said it before, but the Economist really has gone downhill in the past five or six years.

  4. In fairness to Keating, he knew three days out from the election that he was going to lose, when Ralph Willis fell for the phoney Kennett letter.

  5. I think this is a very confused version of the argument in Pamela Williams’ book on the 1996 election that whenever Labor showed the slightest hint of a revival (and they were pretty slight) the Liberals hammered the theme of how arrogant PK would be if he won again.

  6. Lyton Crosby was not involved in 1996. Andrew Robb was.
    Crosby was involved in 1998 where the luibs won on the lowest ever vote for a Government and 01 when Tampa blew everything away.

  7. No doubt it’s very cool in the UK to be ignorant about Australia. Possibly a person knowledgeable about Oz wouln’t be invited for the country weekend. In fact, in many social contexts, ignorance about a number of things is “de rigeur”. It is an interesting subject in fringe sociology.

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