Foxy and Suze,

Got to say that I think I've regained a goodly portion of my political interest over the past few days. (I think runner's splendid thread might have helped it along, somehow) - 'tis a good thing as I was quite dispirited there for a while. I'm still fairly cynical as to the whole process - but it is what it is.
Let's hope that Julia can regain her mojo as I find it ever so slightly ludicrous that Tony might slide into the top job almost by default.

Here here Poirot!

I too was despairing of ever being interested in politics as it is now, but the current offering in the form of Abbott, has me despairing even more.

The 'real' Julia Gillard would be far more preferable to either the real or any other form of Tony Abbott.

We can only hope that eventually common sense will prevail, and Julia will be returned to be the Prime Minister.

Julia's this is the real me, football analogy positioning statement elicited a 'don't come the raw prawn' with the electorate reaction. I was a bit disappointed in this approach and people are questioning who is Julia and what have been seeing up until now.

One would have thought, even hoped for a millisecond, that the whole Rudd poll-driven media-spin approach fell flat on the electorate the first time around. Why on earth repeat the mistake!

Despite this stumble, Julia Gillard has what it takes to be PM but she needs to throw off the shackles of the polls and get about telling us what a Gillard led government is about and what they plan to do. The same applies to Mr Abbott.

I don't dislike Mr Abbott personally and have even defended him on some fronts, although I do not share his party's general aims or philosophy. Much of the politicking in this election is coming down to one-upmanship and bickering. How loud do the bells have to toll for the pollies to sit up and listen - are they that removed from reality.

The Greens IMO are the best option - they have from the beginning laid out their policies and there is no to-ing and fro-ing according to the changing winds. You either like what you see or you don't and the 'vision' is not limited to a three year term game plan.

So the decision on what party is better to govern us for the next 3 years has all come down to nothing but personalities - like some sort of reality TV programme.

Policies no longer matter it seems.

From what I can see, neither alternative has any vision beyond the next few months.

If Abbott wins and he pays off the "debt" (already due in 3 years regardless), stops the mining tax the looming refugee invasion armada plus various infrastructure programmes and abandons one parental leave plan for another - then what?? Nothing left to do?

Likewise for Labour.

Beyond the all the serious discussion about Julia's earlobes and Abbotts irrationality there's little else left to discuss.

No vision of what sort of future we are heading toward - let's just make it up as we go along.

This is a really vicious and hollow campaign (and I've seen a lot of them over the years). It's not surprising that most of the the debate is as phoney and full of contrived bluster as the candidates themselves.

We should be demanding more from all of them.

I'm surprised that so many reich-wingers have conveniently forgotten that Abbott was behind the jailing of their pin-up girl Pauline Hanson a few years ago.

As Howards former attack-dog he has plenty of bulls-eyes painted on him too and we may be reminded of them soon enough.

Abbott may have passed some exams long ago but Knowledge is not Wisdom.

Robert: <"Labor seems to be running the campaign around the leaders (making it a presidential style campaign) yet the leader only get's to stay leader while they have the confidence of the party room.">

Yes, as was recently demonstrated again hey.

Interesting though to read, "I'd seen an ALP add listing a bunch of things from the past that Abbott would bring back (regardless of him clearly saying he would not do so)...".

If we take the former and the latter (truths IMO) then what we have is an explanation for why campaign promises are rarely kept. Why we still all act surprised I don't know.

It would seem pretty clear that no matter what a leader promises the public, they individually seem to feel no obligation to keep those promises because in fact they CAN'T. If the party (and whoever inserts the real strength - eg: mining companies) disagrees - then the promise is effectively non-existent.