The first pollster to put its head above the parapet post-election has been Essential Research, though it’s sensibly refraining from treating us to voting intention results for the time being. As reported in The Guardian yesterday, the pollster’s fortnightly survey focused on what respondents did do rather than what they would do, finding 48% saying their decision was made well in advance of the election, 26% saying they made up their mind in the weeks before the election, and 11% saying they made up their mind on polling day. Lest this seemingly high rate of indecision be cited as an alibi for pollster failure, the historical results of the Australian National University’s Australian Election Study – which you can find displayed on page 18 here – suggest these numbers to be in no way out of the ordinary.
The poll also found those who decided in the final weeks came down 40% for the Coalition and 31% for Labor. However, assuming the sample for this poll was as per the Essential norm of between 1000 and 1100 (which I hope to be able to verify later today), the margin of error on this subset of the total sample would have been over 5%, making these numbers statistically indistinguishable from the almost-final national primary vote totals of 41.4% for the Coalition and 33.3% for Labor. This goes double for the finding that those who decided on election day went Coalition 38% and Labor 27%, remembering this counted for only 11% of the sample.
Perhaps notable is a finding that only 22% of respondents said they had played “close attention” to the election campaign, which compares with results of between 30% and 40% for the Australian Election Study’s almost equivalent response for “a good deal of interest in the election” between 1996 and 2016. Forty-four per cent said they had paid little or no attention, and 34% some attention. These findings may be relevant to the notion that the pollsters failed because they had too many politically engaged respondents in their sample. The Guardian reports breakdowns were provided on this question for voters at different levels of education – perhaps the fact that this question was asked signifies that they will seek to redress the problem by weighting for this in future.
Also featured are unsurprising findings on issue salience, with those more concerned with economic management tending to favour the Coalition, and those prioritising education and climate change favouring Labor and the Greens.
In other post-election analysis news, the Grattan Institute offers further data illustrating some now familiar themes: the high-income areas swung against the Coalition, whereas low-to-middle income ones went solidly the other way; areas with low tertiary education swung to the Coalition, although less so in Victoria than New South Wales and Queensland.
Another popular notion is that Labor owes its defeat to a loss of support among religious voters, as a hangover from the same-sex marriage referendum and, in what may have been a sleeper issue at the cultural level, the Israel Folau controversy. Chris Bowen said in the wake of the defeat that he had encountered a view that “people of faith no longer feel that progressive politics cares about them”, and The Australian reported on Saturday that Labor MPs believed Bill Shorten blundered in castigating Scott Morrison for declining to affirm that he did not believe gay people would go to hell.
In reviewing Labor’s apparent under-performance among ethnic communities in Sydney and Melbourne, Andrew Jakubowicz and Christina Ho in The Conversation downplay the impact of religious factors, pointing to a precipitous decline in support for Christian minor parties, and propose that Labor’s promised expansion of parental reunion visas backfired on them. Intended to capture the Chinese vote in Chisholm, Banks and Reid, the actual effect was to encourage notions of an imminent influx of Muslim immigrants, “scaring both non-Muslim ethnic and non-ethnic voters”.
However, I’m not clear what this is based on, beyond the fact that the Liberals did a lot better in Banks than they did in neighbouring Barton, home to “very much higher numbers of South Asian and Muslim residents”. Two things may be said in response to this. One is that the nation’s most Islamic electorate, Watson and Blaxland, recorded swings of 4% to 5% to the Liberals, no different from Banks. The other is that the boundary between Banks and Barton runs right through the Chinese enclave of Hurstville, but voters on either side of the line behaved very differently. The Hurstville pre-poll voting centre, which serviced both electorates, recorded a 4.8% swing to Labor for Barton, and a 5.7% swing to Liberal for Banks. This may suggest that sitting member factors played an important role, and are perhaps of particular significance for Chinese voters.
“blunt the opposition’s assault”
There is no assault. Labor never positioned themselves anywhere but on the side of the Coalition when it came to national security. Who is going to take them seriously now? Laughable.
Unsurprising. Shorten’s version of Labor was in lock-step with the Coalition on anything and everything vaguely “national security” related.
Too hard to make the case that the government shouldn’t be able to force private companies to break encryption, or force individual IT workers to secretly build in encryption-breaking features to their work, or that no, indefinite detention is ethically wrong and the people on Nauru/Manus aren’t all pedophiles, rapists, and murderers and can’t be presumed to be/politicized that way without proper trials demonstrating such.
A cracker from Mark Knight.
Hi.
Victoria has it right the subliminal narrative of Kill Bill won over the disengaged. Not helped by factors that William points out in his post above on the. Western Sydney votes and what that tells us about religion.
To combat that Labor needed a full on campaign including advertising every night like they did with WorkChoices.
OR treat climate change like the existential crisis it is and campaign on that as the number one issue. That way just as Bob Hawke won with the Franklin Dam you convince enough people you are indeed serious and they will vote in large enough numbers to offset the losses of those fearing job loss.
OR go for a wealth tax like Senator Elizabeth Warren has proposed. Make the same arguments. Argue this is how we pay. This is what we spend it on.
Now here is something interesting
NSW Government expects the exporting of Hunter coal to increase 30% from 2012 to this year and to continue to be strong to 2040
Others are expecting a rapid decline
https://www.miningmonthly.com/sustainability/international-coal-news/1364238/hunter-coal-future-hangs-in-the-balance
One of the problems for Labor was announcing how they were going to raise money so long before the election.
Promises were made on how to spend it in almost ever electorate.
They could not go back and change anything even when it became obvious there was a backlash against particularly the franking credits.
Learn for next time.
If the L/NP are fair weather economic managers, they will not be able to handle the problems that are predicted to be coming.
It is possible the L/NP only seemed to win. Who wants to govern with a basket case economy?
BK
The cartoonists have been great. I really hope that Ita Buttrose keeps to her word.
No more spiking Adani stories due to Adani complaining.
More broadly I think we need a Charter of Rights so we prevent government doing this crap. Make the default be you have to argue to a judge expert in National Security why you need to do something but still have a minimum that even that can’t over ride.
Labor made it clear in April 2018 that it was very concerned about the leak to Newscorp and whether it was part of internal tensions within c@binet at the time.
Mark Dreyfus made it clear in April 2018 that he had written to the government outlining labor concerns re the leak being part of said internal tensions and requesting a investigation into the leak. This was widely reported at the time and Dreyfus and labor were very open about the fact.
Perhaps a few of the anti labor Pavlov dogs who jump in time after time should instead do their research.
This report today is so obviously a government attempt to muddy the waters.
Back to hibernation.
Mr Ed
Warren argues how it’s going to be raised. She makes it crystal clear it will only affect the rich. She makes it very clear by saying things like “I am talking about you Amazon” or “Jeff Bezos” I am not talking about you” in Televised Town Hall meetings. The you being a Trump voter who voted for Obama previously from Pennsylvania.
Mr Shorten should have done something like that on Franking Credits which became death taxes in the vacuum of silence Labor left in place.
…the rape allegations rehashed.
Apparently the woman concerned DID go public (via social media) as was originally planned, but the media didn’t run with it because of the Shorten’s mum debacle.
The rape allegations actually did make it to the mainstream media, albeit with a very precarious toehold.
2GB’s Ben Fordham hosted an interview with Peter Faris, a somewhat notorious (due to his right wing views) retired criminal QC.
Faris claimed to be, not so much “acting for” the woman, but “advising” her, “helping her out”, “accompanying her to the police station as a friend” and so on, so that she could put “new evidence” before the appropriate authorities.
Faris went to a lot of trouble to emphasize that he was NOT acting in a professional capacity (perhaps for legal ethics reasons). He said he had no idea whether the “new evidence” was strong, or even relevant.
This “new evidence” appeared to consist of witness statements that the woman had collected from attendees at the Young Labor convention in question. Faris reported that she had been disappointed when her first complaint had been dismissed by the police, apparently due to lack if corroboration. So, since then, she had sought out co-attendees in order to provide such supporting evidence. Faris had gone with her to the cop shop to make sure that proper procedures had been followed. But he expressed no opinion as to the quality of the evidence in itself.
For his part, Fordham took extreme care throughout the interview to play a dead bat to the story’s implications. He emphasized that he had no opinion or comment on what Faris told him, the allegations themselves (in past or present form), or their political import. All he was providing, he implied, was a public recognition that the story may go “live” again.
On Facebook, however, the woman (or those acting for her) had been FAR more active and sensational. I saw photos of her, group photos (including a boyish-looking Shorten and the woman in the same shot), plastered around with all kinds of ominous hints that the story was simmering, soon to boil over, and that the woman’s life had been ruined etc. by the alleged incident so long ago.
What the media does is to destroy trust in ALL politicians, but then be very selective of which politicians they choose to accuse of untrustworthy activities.
The “Death Tax” example is telling. The mene went: “Labor’s lied about taxes before, therefore they’re lying about them now.” Pretty straightforward stuff.
But I can’t remember Morrison being accused of anything worse than being a Daggy Dad. Hence the the only one who suffered from the general distrust of politicians was Shorten. Whatever he would be accused of, people would almost automatically believe because all pollies were rotten.
Likewise with the rape story: I have spoken with several people who believe it absolutely, because it came from trusted Facebook Friends, from multiple directions. They couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t pressed home in the media.
When I suggested this might have been because the allegation might be untrue (so unlikely that even 2GB wouldn’t follow it up with any vigour), they almost patted me on the head in sympathy for the obviously addled state of my brain. They KNEW the truth about Shorten. It was obvious. With no allegations surfacing about Morrison, it left Shorten isolated and vilified. Job done.
I see a similar hysteria regarding Pell. He is undoubtedly a hated man, and has been convincingly associated with the covering up of sickening historical child abuse allegations against other priests. For that he should stand condemned.
But now it’s got to the stage where many are prepared to believe anything at all of Pell, including that he is a child rapist himself. His conviction is now being appealed as the result of an “unsafe” verdict and we shall see what we shall see there when the Court delivers its judgement.
However, the fact remains that there are just as many haters, judgers and puritains on the Left as there are on the Right of politics. This observation was about the only point I agreed with from Uhlmann’s angry column on freedom of religion in Nine Media the other day.
We could all do well to take it on board. Hatred only leads to madness and a sick society.
Big A Adrian – it’s good to get different viewpoints.
I don’t know that distilling it down to “Morrison was a good campaigner and Shorten wasn’t, and no one was allowed to say it” is either true or useful.
In my view the election past can only be seen as a confluence of a large number of factors. Some of these factors Labor should have been able to see coming and taken a different tack. Other things blindsided Labor and in the confusing profusion of attacks during the election campaign Labor both didn’t realize how badly things were going (because polls, and their other information gathering was inadequate) and thought that projecting safe, stable, confidence was the way to go to back up the (poll-induced) sense that voting intention was locked in behind a Labor victory.
You say the polls were tight… if the polls were really reflecting voting intention and the possibility of an LNP win there should have been some polls with the LNP in front … but there was not one. Not a single one in years. Tightening, sure, but never recording an LNP 2PP in front, not once? The polls were deeply, deeply wrong, and didn’t indicate a particularly close (in Australian terms) election, but rather a comfortable Labor win, that in the end turned out to be a very comfortable LNP win.
To me, with hindsight and now knowing the polls were misleading, Labor’s “big target” was the most fundamental flaw. I don’t think Shorten’s campaigning, nor Morrison’s campaigning, made much of a negative/positive impact on their campaigns as you suggest. Morrison and the Libs didn’t really win this election – Labor was rejected, and it was rejected because there were too many parts of their policy platform that could be, and were, attacked – and more than that the many things going on with the actual Labor platform provided too much cover for the lies about stuff that wasn’t in Labor’s platform to flourish.
I honestly don’t think that having a better salesman than Shorten out the front trying to sell that platform would have fared any better under the circumstances.
On the other side the Turnbull vs Morrison hypothetical is an interesting one. It is possible that Turnbull would have run such a different campaign that certain forces that were very effective in this campaign might not have come to bear on Labor, and perhaps Labor might have won against Turnbull … the synergy with the Palmer torrent of bullshit might not have happened, perhaps Turnbull wouldn’t have been onboard with the ugliest bits of the campaigning, who knows.
Dutton probably couldn’t have won either, so in that sense Morrison was probably the best option for the Libs.
I still don’t think Morrison was or is a great campaigner. With a full on scare campaign on the ALP’s platform (real and fake) he did what he needed to do which was to appear mostly harmless and maybe a bit more relatable to get those low-information voters to think he was an ok bloke. I think a lot of people (not Dutton, though!) could have done the same successfully. And the blokiness schtick without the Labor scare stuff wouldn’t have worked at all.
I will just say that your post did mildly rub me the wrong way, and as I point out here regularly I am not a rusted on ALP person, just someone who cannot stand what the modern Liberal party has become and what it is doing to this country, and I think what annoyed me the most about your writing was this:
… you make it sound like it’s just about what Labor has to do. This mess we are in is of everyone’s doing, and all of us who give a damn about this country and this world need to do better. You can’t sit back and point fingers at Labor and say “you guys” need to do X, Y and Z.
You’re in this too, as we all are, and sitting in the background sniping is not helping IMO.
The weaknesses of the me-too strategy are all too evident:
1) If you don’t win, you’re stuck with everything you waved through.
2) You leave yourself in no position to criticise, indeed you’ll just look like a hypocrite playing political games if you do.
3) You’re helping/doing the job of your opponent in convincing people that there’s merit to the policies you let through.
The critical point is the last one. Australians don’t seem to give a fig about the creeping intrusion of the national security apparatus into civil society, and that’s quite likely because we’ve had both major political parties – and the media (!) until targets were painted on their heads – running the argument that it’s both good and necessary.
One last thing, at some point the grudging acceptance of me-too as a political strategy starts turning into a question: What if a party’s support of such policies stems not merely from some strategy but from their beliefs and philosophies?
It’s interesting.
Some are encouraging Labor to stand up and oppose this nonsense. It may be time, the press may lend a little support instead of opposing or opposing with balance. The Greens however have made it clear they won’t, no matter what, they will be snipping.
Display Name b
On National Security Labor has to run who is watching the watchers. The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance. Not say how good the laws are.
That’s how Labor says it’s being strong on national security. Not letting us become a police state.
The argument BB makes about mob rule. Even though I disagree with him about Pell.
Paul Keating was prescient and on the money about the Security Agencies. As usual. God help the country when he goes.
BB
Threat from team Labor in response to the rehashing of the allegations as well as another rumour, was MAD.
One reason why it didn’t proceed further.
Indeed he is. Because that’s what he was tried for and convicted of. Funny how that works.
If you want to relate that to Shorten, then okay, go and get him tried and convicted of rape first. Otherwise you’re just putting (child raping) oranges against (innocent) apples and pretending they’re somehow comparable.
They’re not.
Bit hard to take labor seriously on national security. When in govt they sent thier staffers to the briefings.
taylormade @ #1568 Saturday, June 8th, 2019 – 1:09 pm
And like, nothing’s changed since then, eh?
#idiot
AR
A Jury trial court decision is not mob rule.
It may reach an unfair decision due to process. That’s what appeals are for. Until an appeal succeeds we assume the process was fair and just.
Remembering the prosecution can appeal to the High Court if the conviction is overturned. So until then we just assume fair process and wait for the conclusion of all the legal process before we say it was an unjust decision apologise saying it was wrong.
A basic court process that while not perfect has been practise for centuries as inherited from the UK. That’s how wrong BB is complaining about Pell.
Edit: Of course I agree regarding the difference between a jury verdict and an allegation prosecutors have decided not to pursue.
Victoria @ #1566 Saturday, June 8th, 2019 – 1:00 pm
And a smart move from the Coalition to tell their flunkies in the Murdoch media to can it.
M.A.D. indeed.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook Analytica data/tactics was used.
The Greens did well in Qld Senate – up 3.1% at the moment. Wondering why Bob Brown’s anti- Adani protest only cost Labor votes (-3.7% in the Qld senate) and not the Greens. I reckon true environmentalists perceived Shorten’s trickiness on the issue. Labor needs to stand for something. And I still haven’t met anyone who likes Shorten. And even some financial industry colleagues I have spoken to thought Labor was abolishing franking credits altogether… Messaging really was crap by Labor.
guytaur
says:
Saturday, June 8, 2019 at 12:05 pm
Hi.
Victoria has it right the subliminal narrative of Kill Bill won over the disengaged. Not helped by factors that William points out in his post above on the. Western Sydney votes and what that tells us about religion.
To combat that Labor needed a full on campaign including advertising every night like they did with WorkChoices. ”
Bill and brains trust should never have got into bed with Malcolm after Malcolm was deposed.
Infected with Malcolm’s arrogance, vanity , born to rule indolence they completely underestimated Scott Morrison’s campaigning smarts. Nor did they comprehend that Malcolm’s departure had liberated the Liberal party to snap out of its torpor and campaign like the party’s very future depended on it. Which it did.
And they succumbed to over confidence. They thought they had it in the bag as the luvvy media kept telling them.
Which is probably why people like Victoria couldn’t understand why they weren’t dealing with what she could see so clearly from the outside.
lizzie @ #1549 Saturday, June 8th, 2019 – 11:43 am
I don’t think this blunt’s Labor’s campaign at all. Labor were obviously concerned about the meta issue of Cabinet documents leaking to a journalist, not whether the story that was leaked to the journalist was/was not in the public interest.
Zoidlord @ #1572 Saturday, June 8th, 2019 – 1:17 pm
Microtargeting WAS used.
Full episode of today’s Real Time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhQYmz3ju3U
NowThis
Verified account @nowthisnews
42m42 minutes ago
Trump’s 175 golf trips have already cost taxpayers $102 million
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/06/exclusive-kiwi-mistakenly-deported-by-australia-speaks-out.html
“To combat that…”
The ALP need one policy, which seems to benefit everyone over the age of 35. Apart from that, they need to be relentlessly negative.
Underdog Toronto Raptors have taken a commanding 3-1 lead in their best of seven NBA final over San Francisco’s Golden State Warriors, beating the Warriors at home for the second straight game 105 to 92. The teams return to Toronto Monday night for the fifth game of the first NBA final series held outside the United States.
It a gets back to the polls.
Labor, many here at PB, the punters and bookies, and a goodly proportion of Labor’s political opponents in government and the media ALL believed that a modest (and in some cases, a landslide) Labor victory was inevitable.
Articles describing anything different principally referred to a “narrow [i.e. unlikely] pathway” to victory, with the possible exception of the nutjobs on Sky TV, who turned out to be, perhaps, not so nutty after all (although how much of their optimism was bravado and how much was good sense is open to debate).
So, with all the polling evidence pointing to a Labor win, why wouldn’t Labor stick to their policy and campaigning guns, by carrying on regardless of contradictory signs?
I commented several times through the campaign about the ubiquity of Coalition and UAP commercials saturating even YouTube (which, being a “Regional”, I watch a lot as a legitimate, now generally technically high quality TV channel, offering incredible programming depth in all areas – the “Periodic Videos” series and the incredible BBC classical music performance programs being just two areas of interest and entertainment for me ).
But I was aghast at the money that must have been spent getting all this stuff to air, for a Coalition that was supposed to be “broke”, and a wheeler-dealer like Palmer who was and is supposed to be such a social, business, personal and political disgrace.
Quite a few here shared my own misgivings, but ignored them. And we were all wrong, along with the experts. We smelled a rat, but put a peg on our noses and patted each other on the back… prematurely as it happened.
Hands up those who did read the misgivings about poll “herding” and the associated warnings that the polls may have been unpredictable and erroneous, and then convinced themselves that this unpredictability could only break in Labor’s favour? Let me be the first to admit guilt: mea maxima culpa.
Even the exit polls got it wrong. The delusion was plenary.
Right through the years between the 2016 election (where the polls were uncannily accurate, at least on 2PP) and the 2019 campaign, it didn’t seem to matter what Labor put out as policy, worthy or radical. The public, if not loving it, seemed to accept it.
The reason given? Labor was being “upfront with the voters”, earning their trust, collegiate, a team, stable and free of scandal. Labor had “learnt its lesson”.
But it had forgotten a primary political principle: keep your ear to the ground. They forgot – we ALL forgot – to listen for the stampeding herd.
As it turned out, the end result wasn’t too awful (apart from not gaining office, of course!). It wasn’t a wipeout, and Labor is moderately well positioned for a win next time. The standard pronouncements, from vainglorious Coalition supporters, that Morrision will “rule for a thousand years”, go in the bin with “Prime Minister For Life” Malcolm Turnbull, “Greatest Retail Politician Ever” Tony Abbott and “Unbeatable Political Genius” John Howard. ALL roosters end up feather-dusters eventually.
As long as we don’t forget to consider ALL inputs – people and portents, as well as polls – progressive politics will see an inevitable resurgence.
In Morrison’s case, to me there is no question that he will fail, and soon(ish). His personality is too intense, his style too abrasive and individualistic, his vanity too overwhelming and his manner too condescending to last long among the heartless backstabbers and spivs that make up his party room.
Albo is far more authentic, ready to call a spade a spade and, given half a chance, he’ll be alright. Never fear. Albo has his ear to the ground. With the polls the way they are, he has no choice.
You’ve got to wonder sometimes, how far ahead and how comprehensively do the media in this country plan their campaigns?
As it seems as though they too believed that Labor would win the federal election, except for the SAD types, and that it is a given that the Coalition would have left plenty of land mines and exploding cigars for Labor, ready to explode in their faces, how much of this Chinese Navy visit to Sydney was a set-up to have a very early, Clive Palmer meme-reinforcing fail for Labor? I just thought this as I saw the banner headline on the newsagent’s screamer outside their shop this morning: ‘Chinese Navy make off with Australian baby formula!’ And I thought, hmm, they got that story pretty quick, must have had a junior woodchuck hanging around the supermarket aisles, laying in wait. And then my next thought was, wouldn’t that have been a real kick in the guts front page story to have used to attack a new Labor federal government with? Naughty marauding hordes of Chinese sailors stealing the Aussie babies’ food out their mouths? And I bet we would have had Clive Palmer himself out there banging the drum about it.
As opposed to, *crickets* except for this generally desultory exception.
I really hate what the media has become.
I chuckle at how AR and Guytaur admit the jury process is not perfect, but almost haughtily speak with absolute certainty that Pell is (subject to appeal) not only guilty of child molestation but actually IS a child molester.
The two concepts are different, if sometimes related. To use the former to inform the latter is nit only inconsistent but illogical. A jury’s is an institutional finding of fact, not necessarily the truth itself.
But if they want to rest on their hatred and that’s their problem. I wonder what they will be like if Pell gets a retrial, or is even acquitted on appeal? Head explosions, I expect.
“These things don’t need to be true, as long as they’re believed.”
It also seems that if something appears on one’s Facebook (apparently sent by a ‘Friend’), it must be true.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/08/its-not-2007-any-more-new-tools-election-lies-facebook
The evidence of George Pell’s guilt was extremely compelling.
BB
So you say the rule of law does not count and we totally disregard the Jury verdict.
Something our court system does not do. It’s very simple. The jury verdict is the law until and only until it is overturned by an appeal.
The verdict has not been quashed. This is our practice of law for centuries.
You are just wrong here to try and state otherwise
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/08/it-felt-like-a-big-tide-how-the-death-tax-lie-infected-australias-election-campaign#img-1
Negative Campaign by TheGuardian.
Zoidlord @ #1588 Saturday, June 8th, 2019 – 2:31 pm
Playing to Australian greed and stupidity. Clearly an election winning formula.
The Libs do it by instinct. The Greens do it by accident. Labor needs to learn how to do it.
Bushfire Bill @ #1138 Saturday, June 8th, 2019 – 2:18 pm
I don’t recall ever saying that. I don’t necessarily disagree with that, either. However “the jury process is not perfect” is certainly a far cry from “the jury process is worthless”, which seems to be more like what you’re actually asserting.
I’d chuckle at how easily you trash not just the entire judicial process but the testimony and credibility of Pell’s victim and also his other victim who only didn’t testify because he died, but it’s really not funny.
I’d rather be informed by what a group of people who actually heard all the evidence believe happened than just go around like a jackass making up my own conclusions about evidence I’ve never heard. But to each their own. 🙂
Nah. Pell is and shall forever remain a convicted child rapist. A successful appeal changes nothing about that. Just means he gets to live out his remaining days in Rome instead of the jail cell he deserves.
UBI lovers will enjoy this interview with Democrat Presidential candidate Andrew Yang. And Democratic representative from California Katie Porter was on the panel, and she is freaking hilarious! I sense she will be on again in the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9say1jGFFQ
‘They are now fumigating Europe’: Bill Maher blasts Trump as ‘the ugliest American ever’ after disastrous European trip
HBO “Real Time” host Bill Maher ripped on President Donald Trump’s trip to Europe on Friday.
“They are now fumigating Europe,” Maher said.
“England’s Royal Family met America’s royal f*ckup,” he explained. “Trump continued the time-honored tradition that he has started of embarrassing this country in every possible shape, form, and way possible.”
“First of all, he dragged his whole family over there — even Tiffany,” he noted. “I know we’re all thinking the same thing, how did they get time off from their jobs?”
“He is just the ugliest American ever,” Maher concluded.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/06/they-are-now-fumigating-europe-bill-maher-blasts-trump-as-the-ugliest-american-ever-after-disastrous-european-trip/
Confessions says: Saturday, June 8, 2019 at 1:33 pm
Full episode of today’s Real Time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhQYmz3ju3U
Trump plays victim: Pelosi should not have talked about me in private while ‘I was with foreign leaders overseas’
President Donald Trump is blasting Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for speaking in a closed-door private meeting about him with her caucus. According to a report in Politico, Speaker Pelosi told House Democrats pushing for impeachment, “I don’t want to see him impeached, I want to see him in prison.”
Trump Friday afternoon tweeted: “Nervous Nancy Pelosi is a disgrace to herself and her family for having made such a disgusting statement, especially since I was with foreign leaders overseas.
The president neglected to acknowledge that while he was on foreign soil, literally feet away from the graves of thousands who gave their lives to protect democracy, he attacked both Speaker Pelosi and Special Counsel Robert Mueller in an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham.
Meanwhile, the Mueller report offers at least ten instances where President Trump appears to have obstructed justice. Over 1000 former federal prosecutors have signed a letter saying he they would have charged him had he not been a sitting president.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/06/trump-plays-victim-pelosi-should-not-have-talked-about-me-in-private-while-i-was-with-foreign-leaders-overseas/
@ jackol:
“You say the polls were tight… if the polls were really reflecting voting intention and the possibility of an LNP win there should have been some polls with the LNP in front … but there was not one. Not a single one in years. Tightening, sure, but never recording an LNP 2PP in front, not once? The polls were deeply, deeply wrong, and didn’t indicate a particularly close (in Australian terms) election, but rather a comfortable Labor win, that in the end turned out to be a very comfortable LNP win.”
———————-
Except you’re forgetting one thing – seat polling. Now I’m not sure of the exact margins, and I’m not saying they were great – but if you recall there was a bonanza of newspoll marginal seat polling I think the monday or tuesday before the election. It turns out these polls were by and large right on the money – in terms of who would win those seats (I think all but one to LNP). Of course at the time they were roundly rejected and scorned here – cause you know, seat polling. There was also more than a bit of good old conspiracy theorising.
This was just one piece of evidence that should have jolted labor into realising that the real poll was a lot closer than the polls were saying. Another one, mentioned here a few times, was the influence that scare campaigns and outright fake news was having on social media. Difficult to analyze scientifically I suppose, but I suspect it was largely ignored by labor. There certainly doesn’t seem to have been any social media counter-blitz on labor’s behalf. In fact the feeling seems to be labor’s advertising on all media platforms was pissweak.
All in all, all this to me amounts to a complacent team, over confident of victory, and dismissing the signals that suggested a far tighter race as fake, or nothing to worry about.
Big A Adrian –
Seat polling has been exceptionally unreliable at the last several elections. Much worse than national polling.
The ‘Newspoll bonanza’ was actually suspiciously sparse … it wasn’t all the marginals, it was just a collated subset, and how it was collated and why was never explained.
And, as I recall, the seat polling revealed was actually consistent with the national swing indicated by national polling, ie a modest but distinct swing to Labor. They might not have indicated that Labor was picking up those particular seats (although they did indicate that marginal seats continued to be marginal … whoopee).
ie. No one had (or has!) any reason to put any faith in single seat polls, and the single seat polls weren’t indicating anything radically different from the long trend of national polls.
Clearly you haven’t read the Guardian’s dig into the specific death tax campaign today. It’s a good read and contradicts your feelpinions here, I suggest you read it in full. Labor was very concerned and attempted to counter in a number of ways – obviously unsuccessfully. It’s a difficult issue that defies the suggestion that ‘Labor just didn’t try hard enough’.
And I’ve already posted on why a ‘counter-blitz’ was not going to work for Labor. What were they going to blitz on? Scare works for the Libs because they represent the status quo; scare doesn’t really work for Labor because they need to make the case for change – scare campaigns just make people feel insecure and flock back to the people promising reassuring nothingness.
ETA: my only solution for Labor is to go small and not provide any targets for Lib scare campaigns, because clearly the Libs are very good at this, and Labor don’t have anything to answer with, and the new Social media reality-free world is just going to make that situation worse into the future.
Nicholas says:
Saturday, June 8, 2019 at 2:25 pm
The evidence of George Pell’s guilt was extremely compelling.
_____________________________
Were you on the jury? Or are you the judge or courtroom staff? Otherwise you would have no basis on which to make such an assertion.
phoenixRed:
Even though I hadn’t heard of most of the panel, it was a good discussion. And Andrew Yang is very articulate, speaking like a normal person rather than in poli-waffle.
TPOF @ #1596 Saturday, June 8th, 2019 – 4:11 pm
It’s a reasonable conclusion to come to, based on the fact that he was convicted by a jury and found guilty of the sexual assault of a minor.
So, three weeks on since the unspeakable happened.
Labor need to shake off the born to be ruled loser tag and start behaving like the party responsible for building what most people take for granted – modern Australia.
Own it, celebrate it, talk about it.
Never shut up.
adrian @ #1598 Saturday, June 8th, 2019 – 4:30 pm
No innocent person has ever been found guilty by a jury..oh, wait..