Today’s news reports that, at 58/42, on the two-party preferred score the ALP is 16 points in front of the LNP. Kevin Rudd also has the highest approval rating for an opposition leader in the 35-year history of the ACNielsen poll, scoring one point above Malcolm Fraser’s record, which apparently happened in July 1975, and seven points above Mark Latham’s peak, which is said to have occurred in May 2004. The Ruddster is even three points higher than Bob Hawke’s rating in March 1983, when he became Labor leader and defeated Fraser. At 48/43, Ruddy has also become the first Labor leader in six years to be ahead of John Howard as our preferred prime minister, and a very handsome five point lead it is at that.
I place about as much faith in opinion polls as I do in reading chicken gizzards, astrology or betting odds (where, incidentally, the ALP has also pulled up to around level pegging). Yet these numbers are so exceptional that it is even starting to become a little difficult for Labor supporters to deny that something big just might, perhaps, be shifting out there in voterland, possibly, at least temporarily, maybe, you never know, fingers crossed, let us pray, touch wood.
Stay calm. Remember that scene in the horror movie, where the slayed monster rises for a final desperate, deadly lunge at the hero just as the screen goes black. Hope springs, but there’s only one poll that counts, and it’s still a long way off.
In the meantime, have a nice day prime minister.
Das Howard ist Kaput. Ya?
Rudd and Howard are even at $1.90? Now *that*’s a good sign.
Howard seems to be on a ‘foot in mouth’ roll of late getting off to a bad start in Parliament by voluntarily apologising for being wrong, through deafness or whatever. Then, as Tim D pointed out, although I don’t know if Howard is aware of the contradiction, describing the war on terror as a global problem we could ill-afford to ignore but suggesting that global climate warming was not our problem alone and the best we could hope to do is serve our national interests. Terrorists at least have to (mostly) catch aeroplanes to be a real threat, while weather sytems can go willy-nilly on the prevailing breeze and the sun mostly shines rather hotly everywhere. Now, he is attacking Presidential hopeful Obama out of some sort of misplaced loyalty to the Republicans, belying the fact that our alliance with the US is not so much between countries but betweeen political ideologies within countries.
From a personal perspective the apology could be seen as a good step along the road to becoming a more integrated, more honest human being, and about time for the little man. Ironic for Howard that it could well be the first nail in the coffin for his particular adversorial style of I do not admit my mistakes
leaderfollowship. Rudd seems to be succesfully keeping his head down and hasn’t made a wrong move, or one that has been reported. Which brings me to that precocious genii, the meedja who always have a completely unfair advantage in promoting or belittling whomsoever they choose. Did Murdoch make a speech in Australia, not so long ago that was almost left-leaning in its sway? Talking up the environment, almost suggesting the need for sustainability? Is he growing up (finally) too? Maybe there is hope for us yet.Chris, are you going to spend all of 2007 talking up favourable opinion polls like you did in 2004? Admittedly, I think Labor are home-and-hosed, dead certainties in fact, but I thought that last time, too.
Have a nice day.
Terrorism is to “the right” as global warming is to “the left”. An ill defined bogeyman which permits all sorts of high spending, high legislating hijinks.
A point of view I came across on Slashdot.
I just can’t help thinking that I’ve heard this all before…2004 left me so devastated that like a woman repeatedly left at the altar, I can hardly bear to let myself hope agian.
Of course, Latham never had a 16 point advantage, and he was far more polarising in the electorate than Rudd. Nonetheless, I shall remain an election agnostic for some time yet.
Hi Tony. For some technical reason I cannot comment here at Troppo, but I can post and edit.
I am not intending to blog on polls or necessarily anything else in 2007. This poll is, however, so exceptional in polling history terms that I think it worth noting. But it is still only a poll, which I don
Testing – thanks Jacques.