Spindoc.It never occurred to me before.Kevin Rudd may be holding the whole party to ransom.This may explain his great numbers support whilst being so unpopular.

Kevin unless elected by his party as their new leader, may be threatening them with a full resignation from Parliament thus bringing on an election.Although I'd have thought the Slipper oppointment to speaker would have saved them.So the rest of the party faced with electoral annilhation may have no choice but to back him.Labor need time so the electorate will forget how bad they are.

Arjay,

Yes, but although hindsight is a great teacher, by junking Jenkins (Labor), putting up a sleazy opportunist like Slipper (Liberal) as Speaker, and using the increased majority to then give Wilkie a good kick in the nuts, Gillard may have not played the smartest game.

Again, Arjay, it is one of those situations which is not a matter of either-or: neither option - Gillard or Rudd - is desirable, and other options are available, as stop-gap measures until the electoral defeat in a few weeks: Combet, Smith, or some other compromise candidate who is prepared to lead the Labor Party to disaster and clear the way for Shorten.

A puzzle, Arjay: in this scenario, which candidate is the Evil One, the most pro-US, and which is the anti-Satan ?

Cheers,

Joe

But hang on a minute, ALP support for Rudd 58% and for Gillard 41% not too much of a lead there?

Are you serious, that's a 41% difference, hardly what I would describe as a narrow lead.

She is being flogged from every angle and rightly so, she is a back stabbing liar.

She has lied to the people, lied to other parliamentary ministers and back stabbed along the way.

Her moral responsibility says she should withdraw from the ballot and admit that the people don't want her, never did, never will.

Even at the election of 2010, she resided over a flogging, some 85 seats back to 72 or so.

After all, she is only there through her own desperation, which, as it turns out, was based on yet, another lie.

With regards to her attacks on Rudd, if he was that bad, was he always that bad, or, did he just become that bad after his position of FM was given to him.

I recall as recently as two weeks ago, her praising him for being such a good FM.

Liars always trip up as they can't remember what they said.

He can't be a great FM, and a terrible minister at the same time.

So, did she lie again?

I think this line will come back to haunt her.

As for Rudd, I suggested right from the start that he may have a back up plan, some perky job he has on hold.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't suppor labor at present, no matter who leads them, but this is not about which party we support, it's about which person is running the labor party.

As I have said before, Julia may win the battle, but she can't win the war.

All due respect rehctub, the difference between “ALP” support for Rudd at 58% and Gillard at 41% is 17% and not 41%.

Unless I missed something, that is not a statistically significant difference, especially if you take into account that the “Coalition” support on the other hand for Gillard is 24% and for Rudd 51%. This is Coalition support for Rudd?

All I’m pointing to is the statistic that rather than being widely popular, Rudd’s status is artificially pumped due to mischievous Coalition respondents?

Arjay, Rudd may indeed be trying to hold his party to ransom, he certainly seems to know where the pressure points are however, he also has to balance this with the Independents.

Rudd knows that the Independents are in fact no such thing. They are disgruntled former “something’s” who have chosen to operate politically under a flag of convenience to create a public illusion. They are unlikely to be able to pull this stunt on the Australian electors ever again, so Rudd needs them on board now to take the leadership away from Gillard. He knows them as the rats they are and judges they are unlikely to support Abbott or bring down the government. If he can’t demonstrate he can work with (bribe) them and they don’t openly declare their support for him, then this whole festering mess will continue.

I guess by this time tomorrow many of us will be eating large portions of humble pie? It’s one of my favorite dishes.

rehctub,Rudd 58% Gillard 41%.The people were not given a 3rd choice.It does not mean 58% of the pop suport Kevin or 41% support Julia.There should have been 3rd choice like,I do not support either of them.This is how polls are used to skew results for a particular agenda.

I note that Rob Oakshott the grub,has made an offer to switch to the Coalition if they replace Abbott with Turnbull.

Arjay, I agree there should have been a third choice question. My suggestion would be "or would you prefer to give yourself a colonoscopy in the forest with a sharp stick". Given the Rudd/Gillard choice I think this might get up?