Here we go again. During the Howard years, commentators went on and on about how the Liberals were winning in western Sydney, even though Labor still held about 80% of the seats there.
Journalists would traipse out to the suburb Parramatta to interview real, fair dinkum, call a spade a spade etc “Howard’s battlers”, when the suburb (as opposed to the seat) was still voting Labor.
Then at the 2007 election, when the ALP took net 23-25 (depending on whether you take redistributions into account) seats from the Coalition across the country, only two of them were in western Sydney.
This was a disproportionately low number of seats; rather than “deciding” elections, western Sydney is seats for vote relatively uninfluential. Yet silly articles like this in the Tele continue.
Politicians seem to believe this fairytale too.
(Ugg boots refer to others’ stereotyping, not mine.)
I loved the pop quiz attached to the story.
Very existential. Or project your own fantasies:
“Today’s poll
Do you think Kevin Rudd is
Yes No
Vote now”
[the word 'superficial' was hidden]
I see what you mean. It is a deep question.
Any time you see a story based on “internal party polling”, reach for your nearest grain of salt. Not that your average Tele journo would know what to do with it, of course.
I think the greater theme here is the Government trying to avoid perceptions of complacency in order to minimise perceptions that its “okay” to vote for Abbott.
Now that faux humility has been tried, a faux show of strength is probably next – maybe a “showdown” with tax cheats and rorters, could be led by Jenny Macklin perhaps?