Ludwig,

If you want to see what KRudd stands for, simply look at all the popular coalition policies. That is exactly what KRudd did last time. His "me too" covered everything except work choices.

Note that suddenly Illegal immigrants are "economic refugees" and his vow not to swing to the right has evaporated. KRudd and Labor cannot be trusted.

I had an interesting conversation with a couple of about to be first time voters the other day. One of them wasn't even going to enrol, thought he couldn't be bothered and didn't want to expose himself to fines for failing to vote in the future. Now he is signing up to vote for “Ruddy!!”. It should be noted that war cry came with a fist pump. He takes a pretty hard stance on asylum seekers and probably not as enlightened as some on gay rights etc but Rudd is the man!

The other first timer answered my question about the leadership challenge with a thumbs up. When I asked why she said it made the decision simple. I think at that age having the time and inclination to nut out who they were going to vote for between Abbott and Gillard was not an attractive use of time. I am sure she would have done the work but not been happy about it. She is very definite that she will be voting for Kevin come election day.

They are only a year out of high school but one gets the sense there would have been no sangers lobbed in Kevin's direction if he had toured their school, but if they had the culprit would have been dealt with.

Now most of us on this forum will probably be rather dismissive of voting in such an unnuanced manner but I don't think these people would really care. For some reason that I can't quite grasp they really relate to Kevin Rudd. While LNP supporters may gnash their teeth over our youth being led by blatant personality politics the whole of Tony Abbott's time as opposition leader has seen him playing exactly that game, now I think it may bite him on the bum.

Another illuminating conversation over coffee this afternoon. My Christian fundamentalist father-in-law who is normally a pretty staunch Liberal voter has basically indicated he is going to vote for Rudd. Not that he would ever come out and directly say so.

He believes Rudd will win the next election, I told him he might be in with a chance but it was quite unlikely.

He feels he can better identify with Rudd because 'Kevin is married with children' and that he had been quite uncomfortable with Gillard because she was representing himself and the country whilst 'living in sin'.

Yet a couple of months ago he and my mother-in-law were caning Gillard and the Labour party for the temerity of supporting a conscientious vote on the issue of gay marriage. When I pointed out that Rudd was the first Prime Minister who had explicitly supported same sex unions and that he might now be being a little hypocritical he just shrugged and changed the subject.

What was more telling in my eyes was when Abbott was mentioned he gave a bit of a chuckle which spoke volumes. It was kind of like he was acknowledging Abbott certainly tries hard but doesn't have the weight of Rudd. He said he had heard Rudd on the radio this morning and was impressed.

When pressing him further on what I saw as a rather surreal position from a deeply conservative, very religious, self funded retiree he said Rudd just came across as someone you could have a coffee or a lunch with and you would be able to have a decent conversation.

He referred to Rudd as a 'real' person.

I am a little at a loss to explain why, with all the fault both sides of politics have exposed in our new/old PM, that he is garnering such responses from both ends of the age spectrum.

However I do get the sense that the more the LNP try to highlight Rudd's flaws the more 'real' he is going to appear to these particular demographics.

Strange days indeed.

Mainly big ticks for Labor's handling of the GFC in this survey of leading Australian economists...the major criticism being of Swan's promise of a surplus "come hell or high water."

http://www.smh.com.au/business/brickbats-and-praise-for-labor-20130707-2pk5d.html

Abbott's pledge to roll back carbon tax was met with opinion calling for a strengthening of emphasis to boost productivity rather than undoing Labor decisions.

P,

Labor is particularly skilled at spending wildly, so the excuse to break all Krudd's promises of fiscal discipline was a godsend. That the programs were incompetently managed with most of the stimulus occurring after the worst of the GFC mattered less. That a better managed program could have got similar results for a fraction of the cost under the coalition was not contested either.

That they failed miserably at everything else shows that Labor was incompetent at everything other than spending money.

Kevin13 is still the one man, arm waving, band that was judged unelectable in 2008-10. Here he is, all bull(s...), treading all over Macklin's tended garden,

<FORMER Labor Party president and indigenous leader Warren Mundine has accused Kevin Rudd of trying to destroy two years of work to create bipartisan support for an indigenous recognition referendum.

Mr Mundine warned the Prime Minister to butt out and leave Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin to build the cross-party support for the major change and determine the question to be put to voters, after Mr Rudd this week accused Tony Abbott of delaying the process.

"Rudd has threatened bipartisanship support on the referendum with his political negative spin," Mr Mundine told The Australian yesterday.

"Macklin had been working hard with Tony Abbott and the opposition for the referendum to succeed. In one stupid brain-explosive sentence, Rudd has almost destroyed all that work.

"My message to Rudd is to shut up and get back on board and stop using indigenous people and the referendum as a political football. We're sick of being used.">

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/indigenous/kevin-rudd-ruins-good-work-on-vote-says-warren-mundine/story-fn9hm1pm-1226678162768

Australia does seem to work better while PM Rudd and the missus are overseas in the luxury VIP 737-700. If only he didn't say anything while over there. Like Julia Whatshername, he constantly gives away $$millions of TAXPAYERS' money to buy attention.