His loss sorta mirrors the 2004 Presidential results for Democrats. 11.5 years, about time for some change don't you think. Oh, and yanking their troops out of Iraq, all 550 of them! That just means we'll have to keep a few more of our troops there a little longer. " not just the wealthy", seems this is more of a Republican message since we're the poorer party now. How come Democrats have pulled back on increasing the tax on hedge funds from 15% to 35%. Maybe because they're made up of Democrats now.
Steve, Steve, Steve, "destroy", come on that's way too strong a word, not going to happen. Nothing has been destroyed in Australia either. Just a swing from one side to another...nothing more, nothing less. They happen, just like last years election here.
Posted by peter at November 24, 2007 12:17 PMCrocodile Hillree?
Barak the Croc Hunter?
Nice down-under ring to it, by-crocky.
Posted by TIKI AL at November 24, 2007 12:32 PMI don't know if the Dem candidates paid attention to the result in Australia, but I bet the GOP candidates did. The message is pretty clear; give the people a choice between the Bush Way and another way, and the people overwhelmingly choose the Other Way. The people in this country did the same thing in 04 and are chomping at the bit to do it in 08...all they need is someone to be the Other Way. I'm still waiting for one to emerge and frankly, Obama is the only Dem that can make that argument. Ron Paul is making it. I don't think I'll be supporting either one. There is one Other Way that could do what Rudd did, but he doesn't seem interested in trading the Global Warming bandwagon for the White House. On the other hand.....Rudd is right on with his GW stance....I'm wondering if this result down under might catch Al's attention? A President of the United States can do a lot more about GW than a former vice-president can.
Posted by T2 at November 24, 2007 12:53 PMPeter, Peter, Peter, give us a break, okay?
Steve is right. I hope Dem candidates are paying attention, the lesson is clear as day. Australia. Spain. Italy. Poland's parliament and premier, and the president there will be a former president, too. Even, in a way, Britain. The democratic publics of the world see NOTHING worth an occupation in Iraq.
Anyway, I'm going to repeat what I said in the open thread a little since it is relevant.
It's just us in Iraq, now. Britain's withdrawing, even though they won't say it outright; the Aussies are withdrawing; the Koreans are withdrawing, not that they ever left their bases; the Poles basically withdrew; Denmark basically withdrew; Spain withdrew; Italy withdrew; the Japanese withdrew; but don't worry, "Coalition" members! Georgia upped its commitment to 2,000 troops! LOL!
If you're a candidate, are you going to support the insane policies Bush pursued, particularly when it's cost so many politicians their jobs? Let's hope the Dems get the message.
Also, if you're the leader of a country, are you going to hitch your fortunes to anything Bush wants to do in his last year in office, given the fate of other leaders who supported Bush and his insane policies? It's going to take decades to undo the damage Bush has wrought to American foreign policy, if it can ever be fixed.
Posted by Brian Bell at November 24, 2007 01:08 PMAustralian voters have a right to be shortsighted and narrow minded as any other voters in the world. It is just their turn now, nothing more, nothing less.
Posted by jj at November 24, 2007 01:44 PMAs the oceans now start their inevitable rise from the melting ice, Australia (whose nitwit PM Howard lent crucial support and cover to the vile Bushco for years) is doomed. Around 80% of its population lives on the coasts, good luck down under!
Peter doesn't like the word "destroy" when used in conjunction with "Repub" and "conservative". Too bad, you loathsome GOoP stooge.
The only hope our country and planet have is if the American conservative movement (and its captive Repub party) are destroyed as a political force for at least a decade, and probably longer is really needed. It's a shame that our weak, craven Dem party can't start telling people what they need to have plainly and repeatedly stated---that "conservatism" has brought us to the brink of national ruin and utter catastrophe, and it must be smashed completely. If not, we're done as a people.
The Historic election of 08: either destroy conservatism and hold conservatives politically accountable for their failures, lies and years of crimes, corruption and constitution deformation, or the country is doomed. Your choice, BushAmerica fools. At this point, voters most likely couldn't tell up from down, so don't put too much faith in the American people "figuring it out".
The fact that the Dems can't even start directly denouncing the Repubs (even now!!) is not too promising, eh? Maybe Rudd can come over and teach our pussyfooting weaklings some lessons? He'd probably puke when he sees what he has to "work" with.
Posted by euzoius at November 24, 2007 01:54 PMEzzie baby, that is 5 paragraphs of drivel
Posted by jj at November 24, 2007 02:06 PMWell, at least you've demonstrated you can count, jj. Little else.
Posted by euzoius at November 24, 2007 02:16 PMThat's OK, their beaches can take the 18 inches of water the IPCC say the oceans MAY rise in the next hundred years.
Did you see that woman that aborted her baby, then got sterilized to keep from causing global warming in the future. What a crock. No future alarmist coming from that woman. No more Democrats coming from that woman.
There will be no destroying of any party and conservatives will alway be. More "the sky is falling" from Euz. we've heard that every four years and yet we're still here and the Sun keeps on coming up the next morning.
Posted by peter at November 24, 2007 03:09 PMNo more Democrats coming from that woman.
That's right, petey, you go on worrying about the votes that might have been while dissing the ones already here, and we'll just let nature take its course, shall we?
Posted by iamcoyote at November 24, 2007 05:01 PMBuh-bye, licker of Chimpy's ass. Hope it was good for you.
Posted by Sharkbabe at November 24, 2007 05:10 PMAre we still devoting actual neurons to "peter"?
Ok, we're liberators and the surge is working. Millions of lives are horribly over, but it's good. It's all good. We are bringing them democracy. No I haven't experienced my children's arms shot off or my house destroyed. President Bush is strong on terror.
Posted by Sharkbabe at November 24, 2007 05:21 PMHoward was crushed. Rudd carried a majority of seats in all states and territories except Western Australia, lifting the Australian Labor Party's representation from 60 of 150 in the House of Representatives to at least 83 representatives of 150. In the final indignity, Howard not only lost his majority but was defeated for re-election in his own district, becoming only the second prime minister to lose his own seat since Federation.
Labor now forms the governemnt in the federation, in every state and in both territories. The US equivalent would be for one party to control the presidency, the congress, every governorship and every state legislature.
People are welcome to think this is a regular swing, but I have a different name for it.
Some new revelations of that other Bush brown-noser, Holy Tony Blair. His xian beliefs and "ethics" helped lead him to war.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7111620.stm
"Mr Campbell added that the former prime minister always asked his aides to find him a church to attend, wherever he happened to be, each Sunday.
"Because he's pretty irreverent, he swears a fair bit," Mr Campbell said, "if he sees a very attractive woman his eye will wander and all that stuff, he doesn't look like your classic religious sort of guy," said Mr Campbell.
But he added: "I think his close circle always understood that there was a part of him that was really, really important.
"On that kind of spiritual level it did inform a lot of what he talked about, what he read... what he felt was important."
Mr Campbell said the UK electorate were "a bit wary of politicians who go on about God". He had also been concerned that the Conservatives would accuse Labour of trying to claim faith as its own.
'Ethical values'
Peter Mandelson, a close confidant of Mr Blair, said: "He's not an exhibitionist when it comes to religion but deep inside him it is very, very important.
"This is a man who takes a Bible with him wherever he goes and last thing at night he will read from the Bible."
Sir Menzies Campbell, the former Liberal Democrat leader, suggested that Mr Blair may not have been so politically successful had the relationship between his beliefs and his actions in office been better known.
"The public might have been less willing to give him the triumph of three consecutive general election victories if they'd known the extent to which ethical values would overshadow pragmatism," Sir Menzies said."
Imagine that, an electorate that is wary of politicians that go on about god.
Posted by bernarda at November 25, 2007 03:15 AM"Nothing has been destroyed in Australia either. Just a swing from one side to another...nothing more, nothing less. They happen, just like last years election here."
poor poor pants pissing peter, keep on whistling past that graveyard, better join Dear Leader in the bunker
it is going to be SO funny seeing your head explode after the ReThugs are consigned to the dung heap of history next year
Posted by gay veteran at November 25, 2007 08:52 AMRecent history's perception always changes with age. Many of your Democratic elders didn't think too highly of Reagan and already he's being treated better. President Truman has the worse rating of all time when he left office and many have changed their opinion of him. HC know thinks of him as one of our best. Meanwhile, President Clinton was looked iupon very highly when he left office and already many are starting to change their perception towards the negative. Amazing...
Posted by peter at November 25, 2007 08:25 PMAs an expat who lives in Melbourne, Australia and followed the election closely, Steve was pretty accurate in the way he described Howard's loss.
But what has not been widely reported is that Howard again ran a negative fear based campaign, just like he did the last two times. And Rudd ran a campaign based upon hope for the future.
And what I liked best was the comment from Bill Shorten, New Member for the House of Reps:
"The people of Australia have chosen HOPE over FEAR"
That should be the lesson taken away from this Australian election for the American election, if given the choice after 7 years of lies and warmongering by the press and team bu$hco, Blair, Howard, Aznor, people tend to choose Hope over Fear, and like ignore the media BS, hmmm, wonder why that is?? Maybe we are not as stupid as our GOP troll's seem to think.
Posted by kcbill13 at November 26, 2007 05:32 AMRatifying the protocol is a nice gesture, but half the signatories are going to blow their targets, and everyone knows that there'll be no enforcement. It's a nice, but empty gesture, especially as Australia is already on track to meet its target.
The idea that the Labor government will be a leader on climate change is an absolute, utter joke, and here's why. First, the Labor party has a no-nuclear policy. Australia is rich in several energy resources; coal, uranium, and sunlight. Sunlight won't be viable for decades, uranium is viable but has been excluded by policy, which leaves coal. For the foreseeable future, Australia will continue to burn coal; it's that simple.
OK, so we're going to be burning coal. Well, maybe we can reduce our usage, or reduce our coal exports.
Rudd ran as an 'economic conservative' (his words). That's one of the main reasons he was so successful. There's no way he's going to put any financial pressure on industry to reduce energy usage if there's any chance it will hurt the economy. Similarly, there's no way he'll reduce coal exports.
So, if we're going to keep burning coal, and we're not going to reduce the amount of coal we burn, and we're going to keep selling it to China and Japan, then what are we going to do?
Well, we could do some research and development, and invent world-saving technologies. Yeah, right! We've got 1/3 of 1% of the worlds population. Our national GDP is smaller than the city of New York's.
Aside from empty gestures, the Australian government under Labor will mean business as usual in terms of CO2 emissions. The only way to change this is for us to go nuclear, and they've taken that off the table. The previous government supported the creation of an Australian nuclear industry.
Let's move onto your next wonderful tidbit, which is 'supporting tax cuts to solve every problem'. Well, the Australian government has been running surpluses for many years, and most people pay over 30% income tax, so I'd hardly call the tax cuts aggressive. Furthermore, the incoming government is keeping the tax cuts promised by the previous government, with the exception of the top tax bracket, which hardly anyone is in anyway. They're also keeping a policy of running surpluses. Essentially, there's no difference between the two parties on fiscal policy. It simply wasn't an election issue.
As for the Liberal party being misnamed, they are named after the economic liberalism movement. Just because you have a narrow view of what 'liberal' means, and have co-opted the term to suit your own agenda, it doesn't mean that the Liberal Party's usage of the term is incorrect; it certainly predates your usage. Look up 'economic liberalism' or 'classical liberalism' sometime.
You have one valid point, which is a lot of Australians are unhappy about Iraq, and lock-step agreement with US foreign policy. Here, Labor appears to offer policies that are aligned with the wants of the Australian people, those being pulling combat troops from Iraq, and staying in Afghanistan.
The other issues driving the election, both of which you failed to mention, probably because you're unaware of them, were industrial relations policy (this was the main election issue, by far), national infrastructure (ports, rail links, water supply, roads, etc...), and a general fatigue with Howard and his lies over the last 11 years (a fate which befalls all long-serving politicians; they all lie, and eventually the public tire of it; Tony Blair is an example).
Simply equating Howard with Bush is wrongheaded. One month before the election, Howard was polling a 47% satisfaction rate as PM; however, Rudd consistently polled 10% higher as preferred PM in the lead-up to the election. This does not resemble the political situation in the USA at all.
This was not a 'we hate Howard and must get rid of him' election, which is what the 2008 presidential election will be for Bush. It was a 'we're a bit tired of Howard, we don't like some of his policies, and this new guy seems pretty sensible, is keeping the policies we liked, and is ditching the policies we don't like'.
Through most of the campaign, the media were joking that most of the Labor Party's policy documents were simply a piece of paper with 'me too' written on them.
Although it may suit your bias to say 'Howard=Bush', it demonstrates a lack of understanding of the political situation in Australia. Rudd did not use the 'Democratic Agenda' from the USA; a very US-centric viewpoint that you have there. Rudd had his own agenda, some points of which (getting out of Iraq, ratifying Kyoto) match the Democrat's agenda, and other points of which matched the previous government.
Posted by CaptainReality at November 26, 2007 06:45 PMCorrection... the 2008 election will be a 'we must get rid of them' election for the Republicans... Bush is out in any case.
Posted by CaptainReality at November 26, 2007 06:51 PM