Could Rudd really make a comeback?
Would it make a be a change for the better that would improve Labor’s chances at the next election?
With the polls as they stand now you would have to think that Labor going back to Rudd is a most desperate all in bet:
click for source
The thing is bets like this can win and a gambler may just get over the slump in their fortunes to play on to victory but I just don’t see enough strength in Labor’s hand here for them to win with either Rudd or Gillard in the lodge, talk about it being Hobsen’s choice for the Labor caucus is something of an understatement. For the ordinary Labor voters out there in the marginal electorates this is the winter of their discontent and they have to nurse the shame that the party that they have supported through thick and thin has becomes a love that dare not speak its name.
Cheers Comrades
Iain Hall's SANDPIT 
I don’t think Rudd will be PM again simply because most of his Labor colleagues hate him. Most people recognise he was a pretty poor PM as well.
I would say that either Shorten or Combet will replace Gillard before the next election, but Smith, Swan and Bowen are also possibilities.
I don’t Rate Rudd’s chances of pulling of a coup Leon but if Labor’s fortunes keep going down then the party may well think that “desperate times call for desperate measures” I rate Smith and Bowen as possibilities too but Swan, Shorten & Combet would all have to be rank outsiders I think
Depends on how much of an ego he has.
He can already say been there, done that, and with the economy in the soup, why would he, ego notwithstanding, go anywhere near the leadership ? I know I wouldn’t
Combet is a good bet. He has his eyes on the big chair, has had ever since he fell on the scene.
Interesting to see how they spin it though ?
Combet unfortunately has the look and demeanour of a Dickensian undertaker which may make his chances rather slim IMHO
It’s obvious that the ALP is in a pretty bad place now federally, but what’s really and truly in a bad place right now is federal politics and, by extension, our democracy. On one side is a weakish, meandering government that has major problems with communication and, yes, not being able to tell us what it stands for. Or perhaps it doesn’t even know what it stands for anymore. (It hasn’t been a bad government – it’s done some good things, some very good things – but it’s hardly been inspiring.) On the other side is the real undertaker, Iain, and it’s not Combet. Abbott is the undertaker of Australian politics. Worse, he’s the grim reaper. His name is Tony and he’s here to take us to hell in a hand-basket through his incessant negativity, his inane simplifications, and – worse of all – his pandering to the lowest common demoninator and plain untruths.
Hmm we will have to agree to disagree about Tony Abbott Nigel because I think that given a choice between him and Gillard then he is a the better choice, at least he is more morally consistent that Julia and we know what we are getting, unlike Gillard who just flat out lied to the people over the carbon tax .
I have no love for Abbott (as everybody here knows sic), but given the choice, or perhaps lack of one that should be, I would still vote for Abbott over Gillard. No matter who labor put in charge, they are going to find it nearly impossible to spin six years of total failure, and a huge debt that no one has even cottoned on to yet. Remember, all they are doing presently, is paying the interest in this supposed surplus budget of theirs, not the principle. It will be interesting to see what fur flies, when the budget status is opened come election time. All bets will then be off, as we are told, just how much a s*itter this country is in.
The libs could put up the Grim Reaper, and still win ?
You’re spot on about Combet, but who else is there ?
scratch scratch, yawn ?
Labor will have to replace Gillard before the election and have their new PM in place for about year in order to regain some ground. So my guess is that Rudd will get the job back sometime in the first half of 2012. Regardless of what the party thinks of him, he’s their only hope. The Liberals and their cheer squads are burning up a lot of fuel and wasting energy putting so much effort into derailing the government in its first 12 months. They run the danger of not keeping their powder dry and being all out of ammo come 2013. By then I reckon the electorate will be sick of the daily rhetoric coming out of the opposition ranks. Two years is a lifetime in politics and you guys are perhaps counting your chickens. For sure, it will take a miracle for Labor to win the next election but it’s not impossible.
Iain, you’re right – Abbott is morally consistent, in having no morals whatsoever. And Gillard being a politician who lies? Show me a politician who doesn’t lie. Howard was the master.
Sax, about the debt: there was the small matter of a GFC. It is well-regarded economic wisdom that the best thing a government can do to dodge a recession is to pump a large amount of money into the economy. Debt is better than high unemployment. So it’s the lesser of two evils. Hopefully the Coalition would have done exactyl the same if they were in power.
The GFC was a furfy Nigel. We had the mining and resource boom to cushion our fall. The US didn’t. It deals in “paper”, and as such, was the first to go bump in the night.
All that happened here was a tightening of lending policy, brought about by the greed of US disasters such as Mac and May for example. All that happened, was the banks, lending money to all and sundry, got caught by lending to idiots. The same happened in the eighties etc. You could/can still borrow money, only now, the lenders are a lot more careful about who they lend it to.
It has been proven time and time again, over the last thirty years or so, that debt, not managed correctly can cause a bucket load more grief, than a temporary spike in unemployment. The libs proved that by managing to pay back all of labor’s last spending spree debt, and maintaining the same unemployment level over that time, whilst leaving the next government a war chest, that took labor, what ? all of six months to blow ?
What have they got to show for it ? Bloody zero, that’s what !
I think you make some fair points. It’s amazing that the labor party is back to where it was 12 months ago. Could you imagine Mark Arbib as PM, it could happen.
Though I must admit we should have seen this poll coming. It’s much easy to look like you would be a good PM than to actually be a good PM.
Its good to see a fellow political blogger making some sense.
Thanks I enjoyed reading this.
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