Dec 31 2007
State Newspolls
Newspoll is keeping up the good work in the post-federal election lull with a series of state polls, today following last week’s Victorian and South Australian polls with a survey showing the Coalition taking a narrow lead in Western Australia. The following charts show how Newspoll has tracked the progress of the Bracks/Brumby, Gallop/Carpenter and Rann governments.
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Howard’s sucess in making up ground suggests that incumbent govts have to be in very serious trouble for a long period to lose an election, the WA govt is not in serious trouble. It might be difficult for the Libs to unsit the sitting Labor MPs in Albany and Geraldton despite the redistribution.
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:56 pm
199
Sorry Ferny Grover but that is the kind of Australian version of whig history that
was peddled to primary school classes when I was a lad.
It certainly is simplistic to claim that all federation did was to add a further colonial parliament, but I was not making that claim. My point was that such a view had the equivalent degree of sophistication as the one you put.
To claim that the constitutional independence of Australia (apart from PC appeals - hardly an insignificant exception in any event) dates from 1901 does not stack up. I do not see that the continued application of the Colonial Laws Validity Act to the Australian parliaments can be regarded as merely symbolic (and if so then symbolic of what?). The failure of Australia to adopt the Statute of Westminster for ten years and the eventual circumstances in which it was adopted strike me as having practical historical significance.
Remember how Menzies as PM explained Australia’s entry into WW2 to Australians - because Great Britain was at war with Germany so as a consequence was Australia.
The Constitution of Australia Act was an Act of the Westminster Parliament. However the constitution was framed (and whatever gloss you want to put on the constitutional conventions it was substantially written by a comparatively small group of colonial politicians) it was subject to approval not only by the people of the colonies but by Westminster. (And Westminster did run a very fine comb over it.)
I am unaware of the background to the British North America Act but I imagine it was similar.
Westminster generally had no interest in meddling in the internal affairs of British colonies in the 19th c and amiably granted self-government to all of them (as long as they were white) but it did retain its rights to protect imperial interests. The relative lack of interference by Westminster in Australian affairs is explained by the fact that obedient children rarely require discipline. The relative position of the Australian Commonwealth government vis a vis Westminster post-federation was only subtly different to that of the colonial governments prior to federation. From the point of view of Westminster federation was an improvement because it meant that imperial interests could largely be addressed thro’ the one federal government rather than thro’ each of the six state ones.
Federation was undoubtedly an important event, but its circumstances were romanticised at the time and continue to be so.
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:10 pm
In the aftermath of the demise of Bhutto, there’s some interesting analysis highlights the inept and naive assumptions of the Bush administration, not only in Pakistan, but Iraq too. Here’s a para from Salon.com:
The Bush administration coupled its support for Pakistan’s democratization with an effort to handpick Benazir Bhutto as her country’s democratic “savior.” But we have also seen this (very bad) movie before in the administration’s abortive effort to promote Ahmad Chalabi as the key to “democratizing” and stabilizing post-Saddam Iraq. Once again, the Bush administration turned to a Western-educated political exile, the head of a family kleptocracy who had twice shown herself to be an ineffective head of government, to shore up its tattered strategic partnership with Islamabad. Like Chalabi, Bhutto played to all of Washington’s preferences, saying that she would lead a renewed fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida in northwestern Pakistan (notwithstanding the fact that, as prime minister in 1993-95, she authorized extensive Pakistani support for the emerging Taliban movement) and sending messages to Israeli leaders that she would recognize Israel.
…just how wrong could the neocons be? Remember too that Chalabi was acclaimed because like Bhutto, he realised that the neocon’s main pre-occupation was Israel, so like her, he made all the right noises. So enamoured were they, it was completely overlooked that Chalabi had no credbility within Iraq.
They just don’t learn a thing, do they?
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:47 pm
KR- A trivia question. What do the last two Iraqi PMs Ibrahim Al-Jaafari and Ayad Allawi, have in common with the 2IC of Al-Qaeda Ayman al-Zawahiri?
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:59 pm
A hint is they have the same thing in common with the Federal leaders of two of the three main political parties in Australia.
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:26 pm
All quacks.
From memory, Allawi was a neurologist, not sure about al-Jaafari, and al Zawahiri was also a quack from a very elite Egyptian family. I could look them up, but hey, that would be cheating.
Mind you, Allawi and Zawahiri both have very murky pasts, but from memory, al-Jaafari was exiled in Iran for years.
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Ah, it’s coming back, Allawi had been a Ba’athist and friend of Saddam in the early days, and is reputed to have bombed a bus of school kids. He fell out with Saddam, fled to the UK, where later, Saddam’s henchman woke him up one night and did their best to butcher him.
Paul McGeough of the SMH retold a story that when PM of Iraq, Allawi took out his revolver and personally executed some captured ‘insurgents’, a toughman stunt to show he wasn’t a pussy, and Saddam’s equal.
Problem was that all the exiled Iraqis were distrusted as either CIA operatives (as Allawi had become) or like al-Jaafari, too beholden to the Iranian mullahs.
The US never got it right, still haven’t.
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Diogenes, here’s the best potted history of recent Pakistani politics you’re likely to read, warts and all:
http://icga.blogspot.com/2008/01/pakistans-power-puzzle.html
…from Barnett Rubin, who really knows the turf.
I keep getting the feeling that Washington has so snookered itself on this one that it’s going to take years of a Democrat President to unwind the position of the ‘war on terror’ being a justification for grotesque military rule. And let’s hope that in the meantime, the place does not implode and become a second Iraq.(This time, actually with WMD!)
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:03 pm
207 KR- 100% correct. al Zawahiri was a surgeon and practiced for a while. I don’t think al-Jaafaari ever practised, similar to Che Guevara. The current presidents of Chile, Syria and Uruguay are also doctors, as was Keating’s old mate Mahathir (I should have recognised that arrogant, patronising expression!).
And on history repeating itself, Voltaire put it best “History never repeats itself, man always does.”
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Steve 198 - me a conservative wannabe? FYI, over the past 3 years I have had about 30 letters published in the Oz and the Age criticising Howard and his carpetbaggers. Had one in the Courier Mail last week criticising the Bligh government - share it around as incompetence deserves criticism anywhere. I’m returning to Brisbane for family reasons, Melbourne is a great city but Victoria is currently led by a pretty ordinary government and I hold fears for Victoria’s future irrespective of who is running the place. BTW, isn’t Greensborough one of those suburbs near the arse end of Melbourne?
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:29 pm
189 KR- Here is a huge coincidence given last night’s comments about torture investigations. It will only target the CIA but it might go higher.
Criminal probe for CIA over torture tapeshttp://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23002239-12377,00.html
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:37 pm
OK Diogenes, here’s a quiz question for you:
What is the connection between the town of Greeley in Colorado and al Qaeda?
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:44 pm
There was a Muslim school teacher who went there for a study tour to learn how to improve his countries education system (I think Egypt). He was a pro-Western moderate when he went there and was so disgusted by the consumerism he saw that he became a radical anti-capitalist. Some of his disciples went into al Qaeda.
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Alex McDonnel,
Greensborough is not as nice as Hurstbridge, being under the control of the City of Banyule rather than the Green Wedge Shire of Nillumbik, but it is a pleasant enough place.
If as you claim, John Brumby ‘is just cooking the books’, please give some evidence on which you base that claim. Perhaps you could let the auditor-general know. Just repeating it in different words does not make it true.
You apparently have no evidence to contradict any of the facts I presented in support of the Victorian Labor Government’s achievements and have, based on the facts that you do not contradict, concluded that I am a ‘Labor apparatchik’. I will add it to the list of accusations against me, along with the ‘obvious left wing bias’ I was accused of on the Andrew Bolt Forum for correcting another poster’s simple factual error regarding the Heiner Affair.
Chris Curtis
(Vice President, Victorian DLP, 1976-78)
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:19 pm
157 Alex McDonnel Just a touch of reality for you. The Brumby Labor government is leading the Liberals in the last poll 60% to 40%.
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:36 pm
213
Diogenes
yep, Sayyib Qutb, major force behind the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and of course, big mentor of Ayman al-Zawahiri. Qutb was aghast at the jitterbugging teenagers, the materialism, and the rampant individualism that was everything that his idea of Islam was not. He went on to be the leading figure in the radical movement and was the seminal anti-Western figure that spawned the violent jihadis we know so well today.
Greeley has a lot to answer for! Ha!
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Those who were students in the 1960’s may be interested in this article re tumultuous events in US, 1968.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010208S.shtml
Can’t believe it is 40 years ago though!
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:21 pm
With the Iowa caucuses imminent, I tried to work out who to barrack for amongst the Republicans. And this helped me no end. Rush Limbaugh doesn’t want Guiliani (no surprise there) or McCain (definitely no surprise) but he also doesn’t want Huckabee who he alleges is not a true conservative. Romney and Thompson are his preferred candidates, and given that Thompson is brain-dead I’m sure he’s the one the hard-core neo-cons will want. Romney might have some of his own ideas which could stuff up the neo-cons agenda. So for me its
McCain>Guiliani>Huckabee>Romney>Thompson.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0108/Rush_Huck_not_a_conservative.html
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:23 pm
217
Megan
Just a few nights ago we watched the movie “Bobby” about the younger Kennedy’s assassination, which drove me to check on Sirhan Sirhan, the imputed assassin.
If you think the first Kennedy death was clouded in mystery, myth, rumour and strangeness, look up the history of what happened that night in the Ambassador Hotel and the subsequent ‘investigation’.
It is utterly amazing, and of course the movie is a total Hollywood bland-out, but the case was even more convoluted and distorted than any thriller script you could concieve.
What appeared on one level to be a simple case, deranged Palestinian shoots Robert Kennedy, is almost certainly not true, and the mind-boggling mishandling of the evidence and straight out destruction of vital evidence leaves you with a horrible feeling that the truth was not something that got an airing at the trial.
1968, it was an incredible year, to be sure.
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Hi Alex @ 210,
It depends whether you are cuming or going.
Go Boy. You get your licks wherever you can.
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:01 pm
KR- still remember the brilliant documentary “Hearts and Minds” (1972) -unforgettable insight into all sides of the Vietnam war- and in it Daniel Elsberg broke down at what might have been if Robert Kennedy had not been shot in 1968.
Wish there were more brave souls like Elsberg, Marchetti and Marks (of “The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence” fame),etc.- whistleblowers who cut to the facts.
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Arty B & Ferny Grover…
My thoughts…
On the day that my Great Great Grandfather (born in 1830) arrived in Sydney, after a four month voyage from England, on 16th November 1855, the Sydney Morning Herald carried two main stories… one was about the most recent developments in the Crimean war… the other was about the new NSW Constitution bringing forth Responsible Government.
My Great Great Grandfather went on to live through the rest of the 19th Century, and until the second year of WW1, in the process seeing various colonies first separate from NSW and then federate with them.
As a loyalist (6th Gladesville LOL), doubtlessly he would have always regarded himself as a British subject. This would have been the common view at the time, of most of the population, whether Sterling or Currency Lad. To him there would have been no question that he remained a British subject upon Australian federation.
He would doubtlessly have regarded Australia as an independent nation within the British Empire. The idea that Australia could be an independent nation outside of the British Empire, that is, independent in the sense that the USA was independent, would simply have been ‘a nonsense’ and I doubt that it was a commonly thought of proposition at the time. Nationhood then did not mean the same thing to the populace as nationhood now.
When his Grandson (my Grandfather) enlisted for service with the AIF in 1915, the enlsitment form asked if (the applicant) was a British (Not Australian) subject, whether by birth or naturalisation. Persons becoming naturalised at the time became British subjects. Even the Attestation papers for WW2 when my father ’signed up’ still asked if one was a British citizen.
The idea of a ’separate’ Australian citizenship did not occur until later. Presumably the date of some Citizenship Act would allow us to identify a particular date, but regardless of that, I think it is correct to say that the idea of Australian Citizenship, like the closely related and intertwined concept of Australian independence was a gradual one.
In that light I think that the Australian constitution must be regarded as an important STEP in the evolutionary process of nationhood and independence. I can not agree that it is either of little relevance nor the all important and culminating event. Further steps, including various court cases, and the gradual financial and constitutional ascendency of the Commonwealth over the States (hastened by WW2) continued and at times perhaps somewhat transformed the process, which in a sense which can be seen to have begun with federation, or even earlier in our history.
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:59 pm
More importantly…
Best (if slightly belated) wishes to all Poll Bludgers for good health and happiness 2008.
A special good wish for our host William Bowe, and for the successful progress of his thesis.
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Geoffrey Kead,
It was the Chifley Government which passed the Citizenship Act, in the late 1940s, the stating of which allows me to comment on another of the many myths that are regularly repeated re Australian politics. Aborigines were subjects prior to then and became citizens at the same time as everyone else did with the passage of this Act. The 1967 referendum did not grant citizenship to them, as they already held it. Nor did it - to dispel another myth - give them voting rights, which they also already had.
January 3rd, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Chris Curtis-Is it also a myth that Aborigines were counted as fauna in the census until the 1967 referendum?
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Diogenes, according to Wikipedia
“Aboriginals did not become Australian citizens under the 1948 legislation as they had been excluded by the Commonwealth Franchise Act of 1902. (Aborigines were not counted in the Australian population until after a 1967 referendum).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_citizenship
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Diogenes,
Yes, that is also a myth. I have been attempting to track down the source of that one, with no success whatever. The nearest I have come to its possible origin is a court case involving Aborigines in Queensland under which the Queensland Government argued that it had control of an area of land under the Flora and Fauna Act.
Steve,
Wikipedia is wrong, as are otehr encyclopedias. It is confusing the concept of citizenship with that of voting rights. There were no Australian citizens until the Citizenship Act was passed. There were only British subjects, and Aborigines became British subjects legally speaking from the British occupation of Australia. You can argue that they did not have the rights of citizenship when they were excluded from Commonwealth voting. Aborigines voted in Victoria in the constitutional convention elections, in the constitutional referenda and in parliamentary elections. Some Aborigines regained their Commonwealth voting rights sometime in the middle of the century, and all Aborigines had their Commonwealth voting rights restored in 1962. The 1967 referendum had nothing to do with voting rights or citizenship.
The 1967 referendum did two things: it removed the restriction on the Commonwealth making race-based laws regarding Aborigines (it had always been able to make race-based laws for other peoples), and it determined that Aborigines would be counted in reckoning the population of the country. The reason they had been excluded was that the Constitution provided for the seats in the House of Representatives to be allocated to the states on the basis of population, meaning that the counting of Aborigines would have given more seats to the states with large Aborigine populations, such as Queensland, even though that state would not let them vote, and fewer seats to states with small Aborigine populations such as Victoria which did allow them to vote.
Then there are various state-based laws; e.g., a WA citizenship act which restricted Aborigines in their citizenship.
The whole issue is complicated and then falsely simplified, and thus do myths develop; e.g, the myth that John Howard changed the definition of unemployment and the myth that lemmings commit mass suicide.
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Quote:
The whole issue is complicated and then falsely simplified, and thus do myths develop; e.g, the myth that John Howard changed the definition of unemployment and the myth that lemmings commit mass suicide.
…but is it not true that John Howard caused much unemployment among Liberals and the Federal Party indeed committed the much cited lemming act?
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Chris Curtis @ 224 - While Aborigines may have technically become citizens in 1948 with everyone else, they did not have all the rights accorded other citizens. They couldn’t vote in WA election until 1962 and 1965 in Qld, and those in Qld, NT and WA couldn’t vote federally until 1962 (unless they’d served in the ADF). Most also couldn’t claim social security until the late 1950s and in some cases not until 1965.
Diogenes @ 225 - The “fauna category” only ended with the 1971 census according to John Goldlust at La Trobe University.
On the wider question of when we became an independant country, when I enlisted in the 1960s I swore an oath to defend, not Australia, but “QEII and her heirs and successors according to law”. Indeed, the word Australia wasn’t mentioned. This only changed relatively recently.
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Further information concerning Aborigine’s historical voting rights, the 1967 referenda and related issues of interest may be found…
http://www.aph.gov.au/Library/Pubs/bp/1996-97/97bp11.htm
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:17 pm
MayoFeral,
Yes, that’s what I said: ‘You can argue that they did not have the rights of citizenship when they were excluded from Commonwealth voting.’
Geoffrey Keed,
Thank you.
I have some details of the WA Act someone on my computer, but I don’t know where.
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:33 pm
On the lemmings myth, I knew Walt Disney was a bastard but this is ridiculous.
“During the filming of the 1958 Disney nature documentary White Wilderness, the film crew induced lemmings into jumping off a cliff and into the sea in order to document their supposedly suicidal behavior.”
http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.asp
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:36 pm
232
It was a rodent snuff movie! The lemmings were high on powder, hence the ‘white wilderness’ and Walt was in fantasia land.
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Diogenes,
It was actually a river, not the sea:
‘The myth of mass lemming suicide began when the Walt Disney movie, Wild Wilderness was released in 1958. It was filmed in Alberta, Canada, far from the sea and not a native home to lemmings. So the filmmakers imported lemmings, by buying them from Inuit children. The migration sequence was filmed by placing the lemmings on a spinning turntable that was covered with snow, and then shooting it from many different angles. The cliff-death-plunge sequence was done by herding the lemmings over a small cliff into a river. It’s easy to understand why the filmmakers did this - wild animals are notoriously uncooperative, and a migration-of-doom followed by a cliff-of-death sequence is far more dramatic to show than the lemmings’ self-implemented population-density management plan.’
(‘Lemmings Suicide Myth’)
http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/moments/s1081903.htm
While we are dealing with myths:
The definition of unemployment as being less than one hour’s work a week has not changed since 1960. Here is the ABS account of unemployment measures: http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/RN/2006-07/07rn18.pdf
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Yeah, but Disney also tidied up a lot of unpalatable stories. Snow White is actually a story about a runaway that shacked up with a bunch of lusty miners.
Why didn’t Donald Duck wear pants?
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:47 pm
It appears that all Divisions voted in Favour of the ‘Aboriginal’ referendum, with Kalgoorlie in WA and Leichardt and Herbert in QLD having the largest proportion of NO votes.
Re the ‘Parliament’ referendum, in QLD the Brisbane divisions, as a rule, only narrowly voted against the proposal, but opposition grew markedly the further away from Brisbane that one was. The only QLD division to vote for the proposal was Oxley, so I suppose that that fact can be added to the personages of Bill Hayden and Pauline Hanson when considering the remarkable history of that seat.
Over 90,000 (about 1.6%) managed to vote INFORMAL in BOTH of the referenda, surely a remarkable achievement for those concerned, considering what little effort was needed to cast a formal vote.
January 4th, 2008 at 12:30 am
Matt Birney to Quit Politics.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,23001555-2761,00.html
January 4th, 2008 at 1:23 am
GK @222
The discussion seems to have moved on since my last visit, so I will leave it by saying that I think you are basically correct. I would say that if you were looking for a definitive moment when Australia left the British Empire it was probably some point between 1941 and 1945. The leaving was not without regret but, as the Empire was shortly to cease to exist whether Australia liked it or not, there was hardly any choice in the matter. The history of Australian foreign policy since can possibly be regarded as the story of a search for a replacement.
January 4th, 2008 at 2:31 am
Any word on a NSW state Newspoll?
January 4th, 2008 at 7:02 am
The National Party and National Farmers Federation are moving in two different directions on farm subsidies and handouts. If they are not careful the Nationals could find themselves friendless.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23004489-5013404,00.html
January 4th, 2008 at 9:06 am
Dispatches from an unembedded reporter in Iraq.
http://www.truthout.org:80/docs_2006/010308B.shtml
Have missed Paul McGeogh’s articles of late…is he still reporting?
January 4th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Chris - 214. I don’t have the details of the state of Victoria’s finances and neither would the Auditor General. Pollies are good at hiding stuff. Your quoting of a few education figures does not support the true position of Victoria’s finances. Step back and look at the place - where does its income come from? Gambling taxes and Stamp Duty. Melbourne used to be the financial centre of the country but that is changing now. Executive salaries are now higher in Brisbane than Melbourne but less than Sydney. As I said earlier, manufacturing is closing down in Victoria. If Ford or Holden or Toyota decide to move elsewhere, it will be a big problem.
January 4th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
241
Megan
I haven’t seen anything from McGeough for a while, but I did read a bit of Dahr Jamail’s stuff earlier in the war. He was not always agreed with on every detail by Juan Cole (the best English blog on the ME, by the way), but overall he was a fantastic resource on the ground there.
Thanks for the link, the interview with Jamail is interesting, and especially the way he sees the imperial imperative at work, using all the same historical tricks of divide and conquer. When the whole mad US media thing began to pump up and amplify the crazy neocon notion that Iraq was the most dangerous threat to ‘world peace’ I was convinced that the strategy was to move from Saudia Arabia, (where they’d outstayed their welcome) and shift their permanent bases to Iraq. I called it the ‘changing camels’ strategy at the time.
Nothing since has changed my opinion.
January 4th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Iowa caucuses are now in progress and there’s some live C-Span web coverage.
There’s a blog on the NY Times that’s updating stuff from all around the state.
Biden’s group is being dissolved as under quota in one caucus precinct that’s on at the moment.
Another has shown up with Obama,Clinton and Edwards very tight in that order, much as the Des Moines Register poll had predicted.
January 4th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Biden,Dodd,Richardson and Kucinich all under quota so are going to their second preference at this Des Moines High School caucus on C-Span.
It’s a really folksy show, very civil and noisy, with lots of cheering and a fair bit of confusion.
There’s plenty of spruiking and gentle cajoling, and is unlike anything we would ever recognise as a political vote.
Fascinating.
January 4th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
It’s notable that the crowd is essentially white and middle aged, or what I can see so far.
The other thing is noted on the NY Times blog, apparently the turnout is HUGE and some Democcrat centres are overflowing.
Try counting a crowd of people within a crowd of people! They’ve just got 111 for Edwards but think they counted one person twice (the only little old lady!) and have to go out and come in again.
It is the most bizarre spectacle! And it’s all on a time limit!
January 4th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Final numbers for this precinct’s Democrat tally:
Obama 186
Edwards 116
Clinton 74
They calculate delegate numbers from this count.
January 4th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
OK, here’s the delegate count:
Obama 3
Edwards 2
Clinton 1
This precinct’s 6 delegates are based on population numbers, and each group now gets to elect delegates (plus seconds) to go to the County Conventions in March. Delegates will then be elected to go to State Conventions in April and then on to the national Convention in August.
Wow, you realy have to be committed to take part in this process.
Apparently a lot of younger caucus goes have been noted across the state, which is good for Obama, as he’s polled well with the under 30’s.
January 4th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
With 28% of the precincts reporting, it’s even between Obama and Edwards with Clinton just two delegates behind.
For updated numbers:
http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/results/states/IA.html
Huckabee is well ahead of Romney with 15% reporting
January 4th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Obama is pulling ahead statewide.
42% reporting, delegates are:
Barack Obama 272 33.5%
John Edwards 260 32.0%
Hillary Clinton 259 31.9%
And Huckabee is killing it:
Mike Huckabee 7,809 35.0%
W. Mitt Romney 5,355 24.0%
January 4th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
The GG has strayed a long way from he party line in this report. Evidently, they have just worked out that Pakistan was more of a problem to world peace than Iraq all along. And there is a very intemperate response from a neocon purporting to be from Princeton
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/yoursay/index.php/theaustralian/comments/bhuttos_elimination_abig_boost_for_al_qaida/
January 4th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Romney could not buy Iowa, he’s trailing 11% against Huckabee. (Gotta love Iowans, they always pick the loopiest Republicans, it must be inbreeding or something!).
Clinton could not buy Iowa by the looks of it, although it’s a very much closer count in percentage terms.
So far it looks like Obama and Huckabee going on to New Hampshire with noses in front.
January 4th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
251
Diogenes
hey buddy, don’t distract me from the great American democratic process! Ha!
As for that article, the first para give it away:
…Bhutto’s murder is the closest it’s come to killing a Western leader; it is al-Qa’ida’s most sensational attack since downing the twin towers on 9/11
Purlease! Bhutto was a chameleon, who as one writer said recently, “knew Washington better than Washington knew her”. She strung Bush’s crew along to get her foot in the door back home and was no more about restoring democracy in Pakistan than the neocons intend to do in Iraq.
I’ll read the rest when I get the Iowa caucuses out of my system!
January 4th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Romney has conceded Iowa to Huckabee.
Obama is a few points ahead of Edwards/Clinton and might hold his lead, although no one is officially calling it for him yet.
January 4th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
OK, now 75% of precinsts reporting and Obama is 5% in front. He looks to be pulling ahead strongly, so it should be called pretty soon.
January 4th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
NY Times is now calling it for Obama, with 84% reporting:
Barack Obama 731 36.7%
John Edwards 602 30.2%
Hillary Clinton 598 30.0%
Clinton’s only a smidgeon behind but it doesn’t look good for her, especially given Iowa’s demographics.
Obama has done something monumental, he’s won a predominantly white state. He’ll get a lot of kick from this, especially in the South.
January 4th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Almost done in Iowa, and what an amazing process! I must say I was incredibly sceptical of it beforehand, but devoting a little time to follow what is essentially the starter’s gun in American presidential politics, was enlightening.
As was the result!
Think about the numbers: the whitest state in the Union, (hmm, should check Alaska!), the oldest and mostly rural, have nominated a fresh faced black American for presidential candidate. (Oh yeah, it’s not just a state with few blacks, but few Hispanics or other minorities).
On the Republican side, the Southern Baptist smooth talking down on the farm sounding politician wiped the big business cashed up and organised Mormon. Well, the Republican religious base had to vote for someone, and Huckers has the face to fit. That a washed up and re-cycled actor cum Reagan look alike came in by a whisker over McCain for third place is pretty interesting too.
So, a build up that lasts a year, and then wham, all over in a few hours! And an amazing result for the dude with the funny name.
So Huckers and Obama…hmm, Ann Coulter will be frothing at the mouth!
January 4th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Technically, this thread is the one for general discussion and the Vic one is for 2007 Election but it appears weight of numbers have gone over to the dark side and bright lights of the more recent thread.
January 4th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Oh well, Dio, it’s just you and me!
I’ll try the rest of that Pakistan article soon, but I’ve got a strong feeling it will be another muddled affair.
I’ve been trying to get some feel for what’s going on along the Pakistan border, and so far it’s truly alarming. Think Muqtada al-Sadr gone totally feral and you get the idea. In some places they’re doing their own public executions and the Pakistan military don’t even venture into their territory. It’s Taliban crazy stuff and of course it’s had a huge boost with Bush’s support of Musharraf.
Blowback, I think you call it.
January 4th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Jen,
Talking about Republicans and fundamentalist christians, Craig Unger includes them here.(video clip)
He was the Editor-in- Chief of the Boston Globe and the first to write an editorial questioning why, when all flights were grounded after 9/11, a private plane with Saudis(including Bin Laden family- from memory) was allowed to leave. Would have needed clearance at the very highest level, and at such a cataclysmic time?
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/122607J.shtml
KR, agree Juan Cole is excellent - am a grazer!
January 5th, 2008 at 10:32 am
And,did I hear correctly (ABC this morning) that JWH was only 1.7% away from a win?
Heavy swing in postals.
Much too close for comfort.
January 5th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
The final election result was very tight in the end Megan.
It felt like a Labor landslide. Yet John Howard and his Coalition government came within 1.5% of holding on to power at the recent federal election, final figures show.
The Australian Electoral Commission says the Coalition ended up with 47.44% of the two-party vote after strongly outpolling Labor in the record 2.5 million postal, pre-poll and absentee votes counted after election night.
The final count shows the election was closer than it appeared on election night.
Not only did the Coalition haul back Labor’s lead in overall votes, but the election outcome was decided in an extraordinary number of close seats that could have gone either way.
In the end, Labor won 83 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives, the Coalition 65 and independents two. But nine of Labor’s 83 seats were won by margins of less than 1.5%.
Had the Coalition won them, the seats would have been split 74-all, with two conservative independents holding the balance of power - and most likely using it to give John Howard a fifth term in office.
Labor’s narrow wins included Maxine McKew’s victory over Mr Howard in Bennelong (by 1.4%), the Victorian seats of Corangamite (0.85%) and Deakin (1.41%), and three seats won by tiny margins: Robertson (NSW, 0.11%), Flynn (Qld, 0.16%) and the Darwin seat of Solomon (0.19%).
With just 320 more votes in the right places, the Coalition could have cut Labor’s majority to just 10 seats, a less than commanding tally. With fewer than 6000 more votes in the right seats, it could have held onto government.
But there was even more luck on the Coalition’s side. It won 13 of its 65 seats by less than 2%, five of them by less than 0.22%.
They included the Melbourne fringe seat of McEwen, which former tourism minister Fran Bailey held by just 12 votes (0.01%), the Brisbane seat of Bowman, held by 64 votes (0.04%), the former Labor seat of Swan, won by 164 votes (0.11%), and the Queensland seats of Dickson (0.13%) and Herbert (0.21%).
All told, the Coalition won half its seats — 32 out of 65 — by majorities of less than 6%. Labor won 25 of its 83 by the same margin, including the seat of Melbourne, where Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner beat the Greens’ Adam Bandt by just 4.71%.
Most of the 57 MPs in marginal seats now face new uncertainties, with federal redistributions likely in every state except South Australia before the next federal election.
The electoral commission has begun the process of redistributing the 15 electorates in Western Australia, and will begin redistributions in Tasmania and the Northern Territory later this year.
Population shifts will also require it to once again carry out redistributions in Queensland and NSW in 2009, with Queensland gaining a seat and NSW losing one. By January 2010, it will be Victoria’s turn.
http://vtr.aec.gov.au
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/national/howard-only-15-from-being-pm-again/2008/01/04/1198950112914.html
January 5th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Bolderdash. I’m sick of people saying silly things such as that.
“But there was even more luck on the Coalition’s side. It won 13 of its 65 seats by less than 2%, five of them by less than 0.22%.”
That is the important bit. Labor got large swings in almost every electorate. Only 4 or 5 electorates went the other way, mostly corrections. They stole McEwen and probably bowman too. The new electoral laws were pretty much responsible for Swan, Herbet and Dickson. With one of the lowest acceptence rates of provisional votes in modern times. I’m not even goin to start about appointments to the Aec.
January 6th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
The Western Australian Parliament passed the Native (Citizenship Rights) Act in 1944. It does not seem to define any particular rights of citizenship but simply sets out a process whereby Aborigines can gain citizenship of WA. It thus predates the Commonwealth Act under which no Australian was a citizen before 1948.
The ABC had a program, “Sisters, Pearls and Mission Girls”, on today, on which a person claimed that Aborigines had been classified as fauna, but he, like everyone else who makes this claim, gave no reference.
Details of the WA Act are at:
http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview?pi=nla.aus-vn672744-9x
January 7th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
I am not sure what value it is in proving the two line graph given that both lines invariably follow each other (I guess the crossover is interesting.. But Western Australia is showing a rather volatile electorate. Which is not good for the Liberal Party overall. They may have amde a few gains on the day but according to this graph it is not a solid point of view and appears to change day by day. A week is most certainly a long time in politics