I notice over at blogocracy you were extremely gloomy about the likely outcomes. There is always the chance that Rudd (assuming he gets there) may slip under the critical radar a bit, as Bracks did just before taking on the ‘unbeatable’ Kennett.

I noted your comment that Howard would have to make 6 mistakes to level it out. Well, he’s over half-way with the AWB, Iraq, unswerving Bush support, keeping interest rates down, Workchoices. And there’s likely to be fallout from property price collapses in outer western Sydney. Our Pacific- SE Asia local area is also looking a bit unsteady at present, with many Melanesians unhappy with Downer-Howard.

Krudd-Gillard would face a big challenge, but I think they could strike some blows and articulate a new direction. What I like is that both have risen from poor-humble backgrounds and still have a bit of fire-passion because of it, even if, in both cases, they have kept it under a tight reign.

If Rudd is successful I think Labor will have moved away from the 04 situation in the US where Kerry was settled on as the least-upsetting candidate.

Interesting times - as long as we don’t get too distracted from what the Rodent is getting away with.

But the truth is, you’re exactly right. He has appalling judgement on what should be priorities in public announcements. He continually tries for the short-cut into populism and usually even gets that wrong. He has had a very long history at or near the top of the Labor Party but he doesn’t seem to have learned from it.

(That alone is a contrast to The Rodent, with whome he likes to see parallels. The Rodent suffered any amount of setbacks and humiliations, but he learned something from all of them - even how better to exploit racism.)

Beazley seems almost the same as he began. Amiable enough, if a bit too windy, but usually settling for the softest option. So the factional bosses on the Right push him around. (This might not be a problem if there were still minds like Ducker around, but alas, the NSW Right is not the canny machine it once was.)

He has understood little about the more successful leadership traits. Perhaps, as you observe, he has too readily groped at the populist tendencies of Hawke and Howard, and they sit uncomfortably with him.

It would have been far better to look at some other aspects of the more successful ones like Howard, Carr, Beattie and Bracks. With the possible exception of Beattie, none are charismatic. But all have learnt more or less how to be themselves. (The public can spot an act a mile off.)

His advisers and confidantes are just as bad -perhaps echoing his serious lack of judgement. Swan, Smith and Conroy are careerists from the apparatchik background and lack that life experience you can gain from outside the cloister.

Every time I see or hear Swan I think of that US political parody of 50 years ago, “What this country needs is a good ten-cent cigar”. The only policy he ever raises (well he is treasury I suppose, but even before then) are tax cuts.

No doubt there are focus groups talling them that this goes down well. Certainly this is mainstream media baron agenda. It’s why ‘relief’ from the ‘tax burden’ keeps cropping up in the language - as if we are being crippled by it.But I happen to believe that there are many in the community who want and expect a lot more from their government and not all of them are diehard lefties like me.

Labor has to get serious about tackling major infrastructure problems in health, education, skills training, transport, communications etc. In a way they’ve even been offered a free hit though climate change and water supply. But it’s time to look at these things and offer the public some hope.

I’m not even sure that a coup will help Labor much at this point, but I do think that changing around Beazley’s kitchen cabinet might help bring some fresh ideas into the equation. The Howard Government is definitely crumbling and it’s a question of whether it can hold together one last time. But Beazley can’t just wait for it to happen.

In my view he has to defy the habits of a lifetime and make some hard decisions.