They get to be too busy to blog.
I promised Ken a post as to my views on the US elections; my post got overtaken by events, and by the time I will have time to finish it, it will be very stale indeed.
But I notice much angst about ‘the state of the left’ in electoral terms, both in Australia and the US. So here is an open-comments thread. Who is in worse shape? The ALP or US Democrats?
I think that the Democrats came within a whisker of winning; the ALP has a mountain to climb in comparison. So I say the ALP is worse off.
The ALP might be worse off, but I did notice that the left in America did seem to be more panicky about the loss than the left does here. Prolly because Howard is not nearly as bad as Bush. Or maybe it’s the blogs I read.
The differing degrees of “panic”, Factory, may arise from the fact we didn’t expect to win, and we knew we had a loose cannon in Latham, which makes it easier to rationalise away the result. The only way Labor can enter the next campaign with any degree of confidence will be if something has gone seriously wrong for Howard and Co. There’s little we can do other than argue for the need for “change”.
The Democrats have slightly more going for them. Incumbency won’t be a problem to overcome in 2008. They would also seem to have more chance [by comparison with their Australian counterparts] of coming up with a candidate who has greater appeal than their opponent. I’m not even trying to guess who the 2008 candidates might be, merely suggesting the left in the U.S.A. have more chance than do the left in Australia.
One of the imponderables here in Australia, is the question of whether, at the time of our next Federal Elections, there will be State Governments operating in manners which help the “other side” more than their own. It waqs put to me recently that someone intended to vote for the Liberal, Brogden, in the N.S.W. State Elections, because he was so inept that he’d turn voters against the Liberals so much that Labor would then win the next Federal Elections.
You have to be seriously desperate to be clutching at straws like that.
The Democrats are in much better shape than the ALP even though there is more pain over there than here.
The Democrats came within a whisker of winning, it all turned on Ohio and that was a matter of a couple of per cent.
Similarly, you could say that the ALP had a good chance, on the eve of the poll it only required a few thousand people in some marginal electorates to shift…but of course they did not.
Contrasting the future prospects of the Democrats and Labor, it is hard to see the war getting more popular and the US economy is definitely in trouble. On top of that, traditional GOP supporters are getting fed up with supporting a party that rivals the Democrats in its domestic spending and pork barelling. So the Democrats could easily get up next time with the right candidate.
Not so the ALP. I have not checked the final figures but with a handful of seats undecided, the ALP held 8 seats by less than 1% and 17 by less than 4%. In contrast, the Libs held 4 seats by less than 1% and 11 by less than 4%. That means that another 1% shift to Lib blows out their majority to an incredible margin, but Labor needs a 4% shift to even make the contest interesting.
In one seat [which was among those we needed to win] those looking after one section of the Electorate did nothing, and failed to take up offers of significant assistance for what appeared to be a lack of concern because he wasn’t “their” faction’s candidate. In the pre-selection ballot in my own Electorate, which used to be a Labor seat, a motley collection of personality cults pushed for a pleasnt but unimpressive candidate rather than a bright young and experienced campaigner. The competent candidate won the pre-selection on votes cast, but missed out to his inept female opponent was given Labor’s mandatory 20% loading for anyone with the favoured chromosone combination. And it goes on and on.
Now then, who has the greater problem out of Australian Labor and the American Democrats?
One thing is certain – the Australian Democrats have a bigger problem than either the American Democrats or the Australian Labor Party.
And the Queensland Greens don’t seem to be too happy a crowd at the moment either.