The only “closing the gap” they’ve been doing is between themselves and the Liberal party, both in policies and - unintentionally, no doubt - votes

GREAT LINE

My fave line was:

"She (Gillard) inherited this history of politics-by-symbolism that was part of Rudd’s initial appeal."

Did Labor really think we would vote in a woman, just because?

Did the Libs really think we would vote in a an uber-conservative, just because?

Enough with the symbols already, how about some realpolitik?

Little attention has been paid to the enduring influence of John Howard in Australian politics. It is his genius of capturing the 'Howard battlers' that has continued to haunt the Labor party all the way through to this election. So worried of frightening off this group is Labor that they've let a large portion of their electoral base go to the Greens. So devoid of imagination is the Liberal Party that they haven't worked out that Howard's battlers dissipated with Howard's government.

When the two major parties agree on important issues, it is a pretty good indication that they are both getting it right. With the level of economic and political advice available to them, running a government in a peaceful and prosperous nation should be a no-brainer by now: the only thing that can really stuff it up is the kind of ego-driven ideological agendas that we saw from Howard and later Rudd. It's pretty obvious what Australia needs: the only difficulty facing the public -- and now the Independents -- is how to choose the party which is going to get on with it and not be side-tracked either by ideological 'purity' or by populist nonsense like AGW and 'stopping the boats'.

I think that Rudd may go down in history as the new Withlam. Full of ideas but turfed out before his prime. The dismal last few months will be forgotten once placed in the shadow of the apology, Kyoto and the ideas summit.

"Well may we say god save the queen for nothing will save the deputy prime minister"?

I don't think Gillard was the sacrificial lamb in the dismissal in the same way that Lawrence, Kirner and Keneally were left holding a poisoned chalice after their male colleagues stuffed up. Five years ago it could have been a Gillard-Rudd ticket.

But by going to polls too early she turned the opportunity into a poisoned chalice and loosing to the mad monk. Who would have thought it.