My Election Posting

It's a tradition at the KingDom that I post my election musings.

To be honest I'm a bit apathetic about the whole thing (for the first time in a long time) as the two major parties are identical.

Let's survey the field:

1) Industrial relations - The Coalition watered down policy (read: fairness test) makes their policy pretty much identical to the Labor party. No difference here - heck if anything the Coalition's policy is weaker for employers yet there is no way that either side wants you to believe that.

2) The Economy - Everybody is a fiscal conservative these days. Labor wouldn't dare run deficit budgets (not that economically they are necessarily a bad thing - it just depends what you are using them for!). As I posted at the time of the last election the whole interest rate thing is much ado about nothing and it continues to be such. Howard's overemphasised unprovable assertion (I think that's what I called it in 2004) comes back to haunt him this time around.

3) Health - Both sides equally boring. At least this time Labor is not touting that the tax-payer is going to pay for private health insurance for everybody over 65. The worst policy ever and the reason they deserved to lose that last election.

4) Education - Both sides equally boring, although I do know of some in the higher education sector who fear a Labor government (those old enough to remember Dawkins anyway).

5) The War - Both sides get it. Labor pretends that they are enti-war but the truth is their policy amounts to withdrawing combat troops from Iraq (where they are not actually performing any combat at the moment) and redeploying them to Afghanistan where they may well actually be in combat. Their policy also involves leaving the vast bulk of our forces in Iraq and if anything increasing the deployment in the middle east theatre. That's not anti-war by my books and I can support them on this (p.s. I laugh at the left who fall for Labor's rhetoric).

Now I'm a one issue voter: The War - do they get it? Both sides do (at least I believe Rudd does, though I'm not necessarily convinced all of his more junior colleagues do). So who do I vote for?

Well I live in a safe Liberal seat (62% two party preferred last time) so my vote doesn't really matter. The only vote I have that matters is my Senate vote. This reminds me, I must look up the senate preference deals to work out how to minimise the greens chances of getting the 6th WA senate seat (though sadly it's normal for them to pick it up so even that will be in vain).

So if I can't personally make a difference then who do I want to win?

Well last time the choice was easy. Only die-hards and the weak-minded wanted Latham to win. Dumping Beazley was a Labor disaster then, this time dumping Beazley won't be. This time Rudd offers a reasonable alternative (heck I advocated on this blog a Rudd-Gillard team years before it ever happened).

While my personal choice for years (as I've said many times on this blog) has always been Costello, I think sadly it may be one of the great tragedies in life that he never leads this nation. The alternative is acceptable. Rudd is a Tony Blair like figure and I am optimistic about the future under either scenario.

Predictions:
Coalition wins and John Howard loses his seat (nah that's just me dreaming again).

The betting markets predict Labor has a 78% chance of winning. Hard to argue with the market.

Conservative Values

Now I'm in a quandary.

Obviously Rudd has a hard time arguing now that he is a social conservative. Fiscal conservative is still a less problematic argument to make - after all who isn't fiscally responsible these days.

Just a week ago I was utterly convinced Labor would win the next election. Now I receive the inside word from people in the know that Howard is going to win the next election and hand over to Costello before his term is out.

Hmmm. Altogether too confusing.

Trust the polls or trust my normally highly reliable source?

Election Musings

Australian Election
I think what finally persuaded me that Labor will win was my daily reading of news.com.au.
It's amazing how every headline is spun in a negative way for the government at an organisation owned by News Corp. I do appreciate it's not an anti-coalition thing, personally I think they are just populist. The writing is on the wall for the coalition. The website tries to spin controversy with every byline and the government of the day suffers. If Labor were in power news.com.au would spin it against Labor.

Fortunately I think Rudd is not the person he pretends to be. I think he's actually quite conservative, and expect once in power we'll see the true Kevin, who won't be half as bad as the government make out.

US Election
I'm convinced now Hillary has the Democratic nomination sewn up. Obama's coming off looking like a clown, Edwards and Gore are too far behind.
The Republican nomination I believe is between Romney and Rudy. McCain has no chance, Thompson could catch fire, but I'd be surprised if he does. Very hard call between Romney and Rudy at this time as to who will be the candidate.

Surprisingly enough I'm not convinced the Democrats are going to win (even though the markets are fairly sure they will). I think the Republicans have a chance at the Presidency, but they are likely to remain minorities in both the House and the Senate.

Best Story EVER

Heard on NPR Technology Podcast last week.

Sprint (US Tech Company) apparently sent letters out to some customers advising them that Sprint was not meeting their needs, so they should look elsewhere. They worked this out by the number of times these people were calling their helpline. People that used the helpline too often obviously were not getting a good service. Heh.

Then this example - which I consider a classic.

One of the big brand name computer companies had a 96 year old customer who would ring their helpline about issues with his computer for up to 3 hours at a time.

They had one of their employees order a brand new computer from a competitor, then paid for it to be shipped to the old guy. They then rang him and said look here is a new computer for you, oh and by the way here is your new 1800 help number to ring if you have any trouble...

Complaint Received, Noted.

Today I received the following email:

Dear DOMITAR,

I just want to ask could you change the lecture notes first slide to black and white colors? Because when I print it out it uses too much ink. So, if it doesn't make too much trouble for you, please help us to change it.

Yes it does make trouble for me - stylistic trouble. I've used the same title page for my lectures for 6 years. Why? Because I like it. Has anyone ever complained? No.

My immediate reaction is to colourise all my slides and not just the title page.

Dom

Democratic Debates

I listened to the Youtube CNN Democratic party debates.

Dom's summary:

Most of the questions were posted by foolish plebians. You are not prepared!

Hillary's wise enough to smack Obama down when he leaves an opening and Obama comes off as someone out of his depth.

The rest of the candidates don't matter. *snore*

If Hillary wins the nomination she'll be a formidable candidate. If Obama wins the nomination I think the Republicans will eat him alive. A risky combination of inexperience and straying too close to the fringe elements to not be an easy target. That's the point of these debates - to see who can stand up to the heat of the real contest next yet. Hillary's doing a better job.

On the Republican side I think it's a 2 horse race. Rudy and Mitt. Many people have their hopes on Fred, but I think Newt would be a better choice.

If Rudy wins the nomination I think he'll win the lot. If Mitt wins then I think it's an open question. Either would be a good candidate.

Still early days though. Even still I'm prepared to narrow it down to just 4 people at this point.