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Mars waning Venus rising

From the ABC:

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, backed by factional Labor Party warlords, has made a tilt at Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s leadership. Mr Rudd has told a press conference that earlier this evening Ms Gillard visited him to request a leadership ballot. Mr Rudd says the Labor caucus will vote on the party and Federal Government leadership tomorrow at 9:00am AEST.

Interesting times.

1,871 replies on “Mars waning Venus rising”

what the hell is going on????
Spent 8 days in africa (don’t ask… let’s just say that sometimes Family comes First…. Oooh, there’s a slogan 😉 )
get back, and apparently Abbott has the numbers in the polls to become PM.
Is Julia really so incompetent, or is the media just playing us all for fools?

Enlightenment required.

Calm down Jen
The Ghost has just eased the nightmares with the latest Newspoll.
Labour 52 Coal 48 2PP
Lab 38
Coal 42
Greens 13
Others 7
Welcome back and please join the queue to give Mark Latham a kick in the nuts. 😆

paddy -good news.
as for Latham – his nuts are in my cross-hair target thingy that big scary guns have.

What an idiot.

Republican money problems.
**********************

The Republican National Committee is entering the fall election season with dire financial problems and, to an unprecedented degree, will be forced to rely on outside groups to fund activities traditionally paid for by the national party.

While embattled RNC Chairman Michael Steele and a top aide sought to use the party’s summer meeting here to publicly put the best face on the cash shortage, senior Republicans expressed grave concern behind the scenes that their fundraising deficiencies may be the difference between a good election year and a great one.

more here…
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/40772.html#ixzz0w1FyLMvT

1603 paddy Brilliant news Paddy. I was getting a little bit disheartened. Still don’t think the ALP is highlighting the economy and NBN enough.

After seeing that Paddy one can only hope now that the only way is up.

I sense a small turning of the tide with the admonishment Kick in the nuts by the nine boss.

I think i noticed a more friendly balanced nine news last night with good exposure for Julia and ALP.

She was very direct with the journos in Darwin and they may have looked in the mirror and seen themselves Latham like.

Ahem,
I think that references to Mr Latham’s testicular regions need to be phrased in the singular. He has only one.

It’s a good morning for us middle aged, barren, redhead, lefty females.

I note the Newspoll results don’t make the headlines in the Oz – it’s all about the Libs launch. We all know if the poll results were the other way around it would lead the news.

Jen, I absolutely believe the media has played a key role in this election – Labor is drubbed and Abbott is simply not put under scrutiny. And it’s not just News Limited. So, yes, the media have played us for fools.

Let’s hope that Julia scrapes over the line.

Just read this on twitter. The media sucks.

” Where are the stories on the fact that after a “terrible” week for Labor, the Coalition still lost ground? #AusVotes”

1610 Katielou Wow KL. You look pretty good for a middle aged, barren, redhead, lefty female.

I am feeling much more positive today, after a good poll. I really like Labor having their launch 4 days out from election day. If they can keep a 4% lead till the launch. A nice little lift from the launch would be very handy.

1611
Katielou
Agree the media are in a frenzy of denial. Listening to Fran Kelly spewing on about how Labour can’t win with a 38% primary this morning, was a bizarre experience. The fact that the Greens have 13% of the primary vote doesn’t seem to have entered her mind.
Plus a 2PP vote of 52-48 would see Lab returned to Govt.
Fran, are you there???

According to one commentator. The Herald Sun did something different on Saturday, they ran an article tearing Abbott to shreds. They also did a very positive article for the Greens. At the same time the ABC noted that the Greens had matured.

1616 paddy It seems the more moderate the ALP becomes the higher the Green vote. The Liberals did end up preferencing the Greens in the Melbourne seat.

Goodness me!
Sportsbet have Labour currently at $1.67 Vs Lib at $2.20 I might just have to drop down to the tab and pop a bet on Lab.
I suspect that’s the best value I’ll get. 🙂

Damn and drat!! Rushed down to bung some money in my TAB account and missed the $1.67 🙁
Labour in to $1.62 with the Libs drifting to $2.30.
So I’ve chucked on a pineapple and we’ll see where the money goes in the next week.

I am feeling better about those results. My feeling is that Labor are going to lose seats, but not enough to lose government. However, if things go well over the next two weeks, who knows? There might even be a swing to Labor. 🙂

Just had a candidate forum on ABC – Sophie banged on about the insulation sceme, Family First went on and on about a dam in the Ovens Valley (go figure), Labor talked about how Julia and Kevin are really fine with each other and the Democrat said they wouldn’t have blocked the ETS.
I said the whole campaign was an insult to the intelligence of Australians.
(And some other stuff 😉 )

1622 David Gould I was getting a touch pessimistic, but its looking a bit better. I like the launch placed 4 days out. A boost at the end from a very good launch could be very telling. Timing is everything. The voters minds should be very focused as they step into the voting booth.

Oh good grief, a Qld Family First senate candidate (the ever-so-Baptist, Wendy Francis) has said that gay marriage promotes child abuse.

Well….to be more accurate, the said gay marriage would ‘legalise child abuse’.

hmmm, been away for the weekend and return to see Tony The Unelectable finally get a bit of scrutiny.

Tony the Unelectable – he was ever thus.

How the Human Hammock must be crying into his weeties.

Abbott just told a press scrum that they will be spending under $18.8bil.

This is half hour after Swanny said at the debate that lieberals would be spending $27bil.

JoHo could not correct him quick enough to say that it was only $25.37bil.

Methinks the Phony Tony is now under some scrutiny, but no doubt he will have a legitimate reason for the difference.

The hammock has been bleating about dirty tactics over the add and how Labor cut it.

Journos asked her about it and she had his book there as well as the complete question and answer written down, which she duly read to the journos with the rider, his words not mine.

Oh dear!!!!

It was always difficult to get my billy cart to go downhill after the wheels fell off.

Why is PMG extending and expanding the fundo chaplain in schools program?? (and make no mistake, this is largely a fundamentalist program managed by the evanglical Scripture Union!)

Can we swap this guy for High Doofus Pell?

Scottish Cardinal Attacks US ‘Culture of Vengeance’

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland has attacked the US over the release of the Lockerbie bomber.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien said the Scottish government was right to free Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi last year on compassionate grounds.

US lawmakers want Scots politicians to explain their decision to a committee, but the cardinal said ministers should not go “crawling like lapdogs”.

He said Scotland had a culture of care, while the US was fixed on vengeance.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/08-1

Ferny,

Expanding the Fundie Chaplaincy program really infuriates me.

When StKevin was ejected i assumed things like the ACL Filter and the Howard Chaplaincy Program would die a death, but no……shakes head.

The Hawker Britton playbook seems to be:

Start with a 55-45 or more lead. Piss off as many of your 55%+ as you can on all sorts of issues. Then run a brilliant marginal seat campaign to hopefully cling on.

Mental midgets.

Paddy

You probably invented it but i am a sucker for a good irish joke.

Paddy has broken his leg and his buddy Mick comes over to see him.
Mick says, “How you doin?”

“Paddy says, “Okay, but do me a favour mate, run upstairs and get me slippers, me feet are freezing.”

Mick goes upstairs and sees Paddy’s gorgeous 19-year-old twin daughters lying on the bed.

He says, “Your dad’s sent me up here to have sex with both of you.”

They say, “Get away with ya…. prove it.”

Mick shouts downstairs, “Paddy, both of em?”

Paddy shouts back, “Of course both of em, what’s the point of fuckin one?”
:mrgreen:

Now its the Liberals turn to stuff things up. First there’s EC’s 1644 Peacock mistake leading the Nine News. Then Costello’s blew by bring attention to an ALP advertisement by asking for it to be removed. More ads will now appear from his book. Detrimental to Abbott.
Julia appeared on the news with her schools policy. Looking like a Prime Minister.
ALP 1
Liberals -2

Tonights 7.30Report on the ever increasingly disgraceful ABC was a virtual 30 minute Push Poll for the Coalition.

Cajoling and coaxing the “Howard Battlers” to become “Abbott Battlers”.

It was truly sickening.

What will stop them though is that Abbott is coming with empty pockets, whereas Howard came with rivers of bribes and welfare.

1651 HarryH I turned off before it started. Just before that Julia was delivering her new education policy. Just behind her in the library were two small signs saying non fiction. 😆

From the same poll. This has to be worth something as the voters put pen to paper. “Gillard kept her 15- percentage point lead over Abbott as preferred prime minister in the survey.”

When Labor hang on by the skin of Bruce Hawker’s balls this election, if they don’t grow a pair and do something about the ABC then they deserve what they’ll get again from Aug 22 onwards.

1655
Harry

That should be the first port of call for the deliverer of good news.
Someone in the ALP has to be Rodent for a day.
No ifs no buts pay their contracts out and fuck em off to work for abborts dole.

That was the biggest mistake Ruddster made was not cleaning out that hornets nest.

The ALP ran their hard hitting ad during Good News Week. The Liberals have a fast ten second ad. Which I think the ran it twice. They speak fast to fit it in. I thought it was a very low impact ad. If you weren’t paying attention you’d miss it. At last the ALP is turning their campaign around. Mind you, they have probably deliberately timed it for the last two weeks.

David please note how much time Obama has. If he keeps building the pressure, he’ll be right.

Proposition 8 was over turned on the basis of a previous case. The case it was based on was discrimination against a minority. That minority was……. wait for it…… The……Jehovah’s Witnesses!!!
Ta Da! 😈

Katie Lou

Your fellow ranga was more than good on qanda. She was absolutely pitch perfect to undecided voters and for the 1st time this election she looked REALLY la PM material.

Outstanding undecided vote winning performance…………

…….if anyone watched lol.

But she has got her old confidence back.

Welcome back to the real and PM material Ranga.

Finally –
Thank you Julia!!!
bloody fantastic.
Barnaby sounds like a complete idiot form the first sentence.

I have to agree that Julia whacked it out of the park on qanda tonight. That response to the Latham question was pitch perfect and will get plenty of airplay.
Meanwhile, Barnaby on Lateline is simply whacked.
My ears are bleeding with his dribbling lunacy. Grrrr!!! 🙁

Yes, Julia was good orright. Started a tad nervously but hit her stride by the third or fourth Q. And she handled the curly ones well. PMG’s breadth of detail across portfolios was impressive. The “One to ten” Q on how big of a tool Latham had been in the ambush seemed rehearsed, but it was a truly beautiful double entendre:

“Some things are beyond measurement”

Although PMG was tired (who tf wouldn’t be) she beamed when she laughed vibing leadership and humanity. With a touch of ourselves tossed in.

Just watched the replay of lateline and Barnyard.
He now has us borrowing $250mil per day to pay back interest.

he is such a creative accountant i might get him to do my books.

Highest rating qanda ever. And 20,000 qanda tweets in an hour – also a record.
Done good Julia. Even when she was saying stuff I disagreed with, she was at least honestly explaining her position.

Democratic Pollster Raising Money for Crist
**********************************

Democratic pollster Mark Penn is hosting a $4,800-per person fundraising reception for Florida Gov. Charlie Crist’s (I) U.S. Senate bid at his Washington home this week.

Adam Smith: “Ironic that Kendrick Meek worked his tail off for John Kerry — whose media consultant Tad Devine is now helping Jeff Greene — and Hillary Clinton, whose top consultant is helping Crist.”

http://politicalwire.com

If you’re like me and avoid reading Bob Elliss these days, you’ll miss this quote from a private email by Nick Parsons, who wrote Dead Heart:

“Tony Abbott is Australia’s George Bush, a likeable dope who knows what he believes but doesn’t know what he thinks, and will take Australia on a series of expensive and disastrous adventures. Like Bush he makes decisions based on a religiously-based conviction rather than logic. Like Bush he’s charming and personable. Like Bush he’s a fitness fanatic with little interest in financial matters or the economy. Like Bush he comes from a privileged background, with a private education, and has little understanding of the needs and ambitions of the common man. Like Bush he may just squeak through to claim the election. And like Bush, at the end of his term of office we’ll look out at the rubble and ask ourselves what we were thinking. Likeable and personable people can still wreak great evil on the world.”
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2977865.htm

I picked this up from PollBludger. I found it deeply amusing.

Abbott showed his stuff at university

This election campaign makes me recall those halcyon days when I was at Sydney University in the 1970s. A visit to Australia by the controversial psychologist Hans Eysenck prompted a typically passionate and polarised undergraduate debate. Should he be allowed to express his so-called racist views?

The debate started as an earnest dispute over philosophical principles and ethics. Very ’70s, very serious – and very boring.

The doyen of the right, Tony Abbott, then stepped up to the plate against a hostile crowd and held forth. He was going well until, getting into the mood, he declared, ”As the great Bard said, ‘I don’t agree with what you say, but I’ll defend your right to say it’.” A wag up the back yelled, ”That was Voltaire, you dickhead!”

The crowd dissolved into hysterics, and the debate degenerated into a slapstick comedy.

Strong on style, weak on details – has anything changed?

Ross Kerridge Newcastle East

KatieLou. All this stuff makes me feel better and better about the election. Yes he did say I KatieLou. Checked several sources.

Chris B,

The difference here – and remember that Labor have not won yet – is that Labor went from frontrunner to dead even and then back to frontrunner again, while the Democrats have gone from frontrunners to disastrous straits with no rebound.

It is relatively easy to get back to a position that you were in only a few short weeks ago. After months of being badly behind and with no movement in your favour – the reverse, in fact – it is a lot more difficult to shift public opinion in a short time.

At present, I am optimistic about a Labor win (although I am not optimistic about a Labor government). But I am pessimistic about the Democratic fortunes – but I still think that they will not lose the Senate or the House.

Dear oh dear. The Libs communication presser is a bloody train wreck. Unfortunately for Robb and the other idiot who’s name I’ve forgotten, journos are all too aware of slow Internet speeds all over the country.
They are not copping the BS that Robb is trying to sell them.

Talk of desperation. The Libs internet policy is a joke. They’ve got nothing left but hamfisted card tricks.

Funny tweet

@mpesce OMFG! TEH COALITION HAS REWRITTEN TEH LAWS OF TEH PHYSICS!!! WIRELESS IS TEH FASTER THAN TEH FIBRES!!!!

I do think twitter is having a significant impact on this election.
Within seconds, the twitter community has pulled apart the Libs announcement on internet. The demolition is instantaneous and overwhelming.

Well, hopefully someone will bone up Stephen Conroy on the Lib internet debacle in the next half hour before his National Press Club debate, and we can all watch the ritual slaughter of Tony Smith. Conroy might be good for something yet ticsters.

Another amusing tweet…

@bui: The beads of sweat that are streaming down Tony Smith’s face will be faster than Liberal’s broadband speeds. #nbn #ausvotes

The national press club will make the Roman circus look like a walk in the park for Tony Smith.
I can’t recall a more feral performance by the media on the Libs in this campaign. All those journalists know more about the Intertubes than the two turkeys up the front. Epic fail for the Opp on their comms policy today. Blood in the water time. 🙂

BOATS BOATS BOATS – the faceless Lib men scream at Tony.

The mugs don’t believe anything else you say Dear Leader.

BOATS BOATS BOATS – Give em more of the BOATS.

DUCK.

Lolz

@rod3000: Now I understand why the Liberal Party are so clear on No Filter, they’re also proposing No Internet #ausvotes 3000

Arghhhhhhhh

The idiot son of the ACL is on the screen.

If anyone can neutralise a massive advantage in communications for Labor it is this idiot.

No cut through. People who are interested in this field have tuned him out.

Idiot.

A competant , sane Kate Lundy please.

Conroy trying to be one of those evangelist fuckwits from Microsoft.

NBN will let my dishwasher run itself offpeak…. it will also let the electricity company charge 50 bucks an hour to run my AC on a hot day.

Huge betting plunge for Labor
************************

Labor has been the subject of a huge betting plunge on it winning the August 21 election.

Centrebet received a bet of $20,000 at 10am, immediately shortening Labor’s odds of winning. But this was trumped only 40 minutes later by a $40,000 wager and then another bet of $15,000 – seeing the odds of Julia Gillard becoming prime minister shorten from $1.62 to $1.53.

The betting agency’s analyst, Neil Evans, said nearly $200,000 had been wagered on the election today.

Almost all of the money had been for Labor, with the largest bet for the Coalition being only $2000.

Yes we can!!!

more here…
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-election/huge-betting-plunge-for-labor-20100810-11vu4.html

I think the ALP are still pretty good value and have duly been loading up.

Unfortunately, no bookies will accept multis on seat by seat betting anymore 🙁

There also isn’t as much value as the last election (i.e. Bennelong)

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