I watch cable TV and this has been a dirty election campaign. If the Democrats gain a majority in both Houses, Bush will not be a "lame-duck" President but a "trussed Thanksgiving turkey." And yes, I thought of that phrase first! I do not expect his bombast to decrease, rather he will become more angry and more dangerous.

It consistently worries me that our major political parties send experts to learn from the US - negative ads; push-polling; wedge politics etc. I think '07 will be a nasty, highly-personalised poll. How can it be otherwise when our pollies behave as they have over the past 20+ years and it won't get any better, Kevin Rudd notwithstanding. I would like to see the ALP ignoring fringe groups and looking to what is best for us all. Being relatively non-partisan, I think 10 years in power is too long for one party. We cannot afford 3 more years of crazy levels of overseas debts, outsourcing and privatisation of everything. It is a tough ask for Labor and we don't want any more damage from the likes of Barry "Montgolfier" Jones or factional brawling. The ALP should have learnt by now that it is better to be in power than divided and always on the back foot.

If the US elections were conducted under the standards we take for granted in Australia the Republican party would be routed on 7 November. However, the election systems that apply in the US allow for rorting that we would never stand for. This includes electronic voting machines that can easily be manipulated, provide no paper trail and are supplied by companies that support the Republicans (eg Diebold); arbitrary removal of Democrat supporters from the electoral roll; putting more voting machines/booths in Republican favoured areas and fewer in Democrat areas. Anything that can be done to manipulate the results in favour of the Republicans will be done. It happened in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004; these were just the most blatant and most documented cases. So don't be surprised if there is a result which goes against all the polls. The US claims it wants to promote democracy around the world but it needs to get its own house in order first.
Oh did I say we wouldn't stand for it here? the Howard govt has already used control of the Senate to push through changes to voter registration and political donations which will favour it over other parties. How many people know or care?

On negative advertising...the funny thing about negative advertising is that everyone who complains about it seemingly cannot watch enough of it and loves to comment on it. It's called freedom of speech, and if you don't like it, watch something else.

"...much will depend on whether George Bush can learn from defeat, as both Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan did after previous electoral setbacks..."

You're kidding, right? Bush doesn't need to learn. He gets all he needs to know from you-know-who. It bugs me no end to know he'll walk away in 2008 STILL believing his own propaganda.

First a smidgeon on the coming US elections which remember still has GWB's extreme religous right with no-where else to put their votes but with the republicans. Also there are the US graingrowers, whom if they ever lose their subsidies it will be from the dem's not the repub's. Regarding subsidies there was also the report not long after GWB was first elected that to capture the graingrower vote, mostly from the Midwest, GWB had gazetted 80 billion dollars over the next ten years not only to convince rural voters that to stay right-wing was an insurance towards their future, but to make sure that the next two terms would be again republican.

Or course, what we can learn frome the above is how the mighty dollar and a Christianity that the real Jesus would not have had a bar of, can be a recipe for future political success.

However, though our so-called liberals are now trying to follow the Americana line, our dearly beloved Laborites must get back to their grass roots. First, economic rationalism, which though naturally right-wing still suited Bob Hawke for the time to sneak in around behind the Libs helped somewhat by Paul Keating, should now be thrown out and slatingly termed economic irrationalism - with a change back not only for Labor but also many farmers. A change back to the successful simplicity of Keynesian economics, which incidently is being modernised to suit and straighten-out our present political problems.

blah blah blah,

People give politics in America way more legitimacy than it deserves, you can't even think of running for congress without millions of dollars in corporate support, the two party corporate backed system is even more rigid than it is here.

all this talk of of polls and what not just adds to the myth that americans have some sort of choice, they don't.

I wish we could all start calling a spade a spade, the last two american presidential elections were rigged, (diebold voting machines people) and there is a good chance this one will be too.

Carl,

If i may correct you on a minor point - American's DO have a choice.
They get to choose betwean the greater of two weevils. Ones chosen by other people (largely unknown and unseen) to be the 'human' face of a political viewpoint and it's corresponding opposing view (divide and conquer!) ie. the Reps and Dems.

Or they can choose to do what the vast majority of American's choose to do and that is have no say in 'deciding' who will get to rip them off for another four years by failing to bother to 'vote' and taking that which they - the masses - feel powerless to prevent, like all good lambs to the slaughter should do.

Instead of whining doing nothing and putting up with a crap system the majority should get organised make a plan for a better system and start putting it into place.

But of course whining and complaining and doing nothing is the easy part.

Probably best to leave the actual doing up to somone who wants to - like, say, those already reaping the benefits of being in power huh?

Whaddya Say Australia? - should we be like the US and let someone else do it for us?

People we can trust like Johhny and Kimmy? or their faceless puppetmasters?

Or could we perhaps have a LOCAL government representative who meets with those in his electorate to discuss issues and ideas for our Nation to follow and have a 'grass roots' government system that WE control, and who answers directly to US, not some lobbyist 2000 km's away from us.

On second thoughts - just forget it. I might have to miss a Big Brother live eviction to attend a meeting on whether to accept Nuclear Power over Renewable resource energy generation. Stuff that!

Thanks for this piece Geoff, it explains a few things I did not know.

Braindrain,

I take your point, my level of cynicism varies from day to day.

One person said to me that if you don't vote you dont have the right to complain, and the lesser of two evils is still at least a choice.

But have a look at the lesser of their 2 evils, the recent military commissions act, which scraps habeus corpus and effectiveley gives the President the same dictatorial powers as stalin was supported by 12 democrats in the Senate, 12!

When the congress voted on a resolution in support of Israel in its destruction of Lebanon the numbers were something like 432 to 1.

And poor old Ralphy Nader polls about 1.6 percent.

I guess the way I see it is that the problems in America are WAY bigger than republocrat v democran. And i fear that when the problems come to a head, the warzone will shift from the middle east to land of the free itself.

cheers for your comments.

Carl,

My level of cynicism varies in direct relationship to my 'exposure' to the 'wisdom' of Jonh Howard (or most politician's now i come to think of it - i would truly struggle to think of even one i consider worth half the money we pay 'em).

I am not certain where you live; here in Aus or elsewhere, but your level of awareness of American politics seems strong - not that there is anything wrong with that!.

You are quite right, compared with some countries the lesser of two weevils IS still a 'choice' - a VERY POOR one and quite frankly Australia deserves better than to make such a 'choice' (of someone else's making - who on earth picked J Koward and K Beastly to run their party's and effectively leaving Aussie voters no other choices? - would any Australian seriously have picked those two out of all our 20 million to run things? We vote for these guys 'policy's' basically out of dislike for the other side more than we do out of support for who is in power.)

First Johnny wanted to be tied to Britain's Apron Strings cos he fancies Our Liz, but like a number of older married men he's 'turned' and wants to lick GW's arse on every political topic now so he can get economic 'favours' (he thinks) for us here in poor little Oz.

Looking to America for answers seems to me to me erroneously myopic.

Like i said... we could (and should) do better.

Declaring 'Neutrality' like Switzerland did in WWII could be a starting point - that takes away Bin Laden and Muslim's reason to invade or bomb us without costing a cent! While still allowing us unlimited trading partners : )