Posted on 09/09/2013 6:59:47 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Today’s edition of the Australian contains a brilliant analysis by the paper’s main political correspondents, Dennis Shanahan and Sid Maher, on how the campaigning strategy used by the Liberal party won Australia’s federal election for (now Prime Minister) Tony Abbott. It has all the marks of authoritative inside briefing.
That Abbott’s campaign was brilliant is not disputed by either Labour or the media. There’s a reasonable argument that the implosion of Labour’s campaign helped Abbott to a larger victory than he might otherwise have gained. But it is common currency that by the time the election was announced, Abbott was on course to win a substantial victory (almost) whatever happened.
That’s a big change from most of the past four years after Abbott became leader of his party by one vote. He was then regarded by his Labour opponents, by the country’s cultural establishment, and by most of the media as a primitive, radical, extreme, and unelectable right-winger. These forces kept up a steady drumbeat of hostile criticism along these same lines. Labour certainly believed its own propaganda; so did the media; and some of Abbott’s own party were at the very least spooked by it. Ruthlessly and unremittingly negative, it might have been inspired by the Tammany bon mot: “Say what you like about negative campaigning, at least it’s more honest than positive campaigning.” Most political consultants here and in Oz also think it’s more effective than positive campaigning.
That was not the view of the four people who are the subjects of the Shanahan-Maher article — namely, Tony Abbott himself, the party leader; his chief of staff, Peta Credlin; the party’s federal campaign director, Brian Loughnane (coincidentally, Credlin’s husband); and their pollster, Mark Textor. (Full disclosure: Loughnane is a friend of several years’ standing.) On the morrow of the 2010 election, when Abbott held Labour to a near-draw, Textor gave Loughnane a memo entitled “A Campaign by Grown-Ups for Grown-Ups.” Its argument was that for the coming three years, through last week’s election, the Liberalarty campaign should be relentlessly positive.
It should ignore the Labour charges that Abbott was extreme, unpopular, and unelectable and focus instead on the fact that, as the polls showed, he was respected. He was authentic, courageous, and competent. Above all, he was a known quantity. Abbott had been in national politics for almost 20 years. He had held several senior ministerial jobs, in which he had performed well. And though he held some opinions that were unpopular or “controversial,” he neither frightened people with them nor backed nervously away from them. His formula for dealing with such matters (I paraphrase) went like this: “Am I worried about divorce and family breakdown? Yes. Will I try to outlaw them? No.” Voters approved of his authenticity and reasonableness even whey they disagreed with him.
The four strategists concluded that Labour and the media would be unable to make their charges of extremism stick unless Abbott gave them the ammunition. The watchword of the Liberal campaign should therefore be “steady.” Abbott should present a strong reasoned case for his main policies and mount a reasoned but not angry critique of Labour’s failures. He could go negative on Labour policies — polls showed that his attacks on Labour’s carbon tax were popular — but not against Labour personalities. Above all, he should largely ignore the attacks leveled against him by the government and the media. Since these attacks reflected Labour’s defective analysis of who Abbott was and what he stood for, the voters would be less and less influenced by them. They knew Abbott — an opposition leader gets about — and he simply didn’t fit the caricature. Some of the more sneeringly snobbish attacks would probably drive traditional Labour voters into Abbott’s waiting arms.
That analysis was followed and it worked. Even when Prime Minister Julia Gillard was replaced by Kevin Rudd in a last-minute coup less than three months before the election, the Liberal campaign kept a cool head and maintained the strategy. It relied on Rudd’s gradually losing his cool, making wild charges, descending into purely negative campaigning, and ceasing to enjoy the prestige that comes of simply being prime minister. That is what happened. And while Rudd was exploding and imploding, Abbott kept steady. The voters rewarded him with a victory just this side of a landslide.
Most conservative parties and leaders face something like the same negative cultural stereotyping as Abbott did. This undoubtedly puts them at a disadvantage and gives their opponents a leg-up in an election. The answer to it is neither to rage wildly against it nor to surrender nervously to it — a response that Australians call the “cultural cringe.” The first reaction makes voters nervous that the potential prime minister is too irresponsible or prejudiced to be trusted with the highest office; the second reaction makes even those being appeased contemptuous and dismissive. Even if such appeasement is rewarded electorally, it usually ensures that the incoming government will be too compromised by its concessions to achieve much in the way of conservative reform.
Abbott demonstrated, however, that conservatives can overcome such cultural opposition by presenting a positive, reasoned case for their policies in a grown-up way. Sure, they face the disadvantage of a liberal establishment and a cultural atmosphere hostile to their values and policies, but they have the incomparable advantage that those values are the values of most voters across the spectrum. If they present their case calmly and steadily, the voters will see through the negative caricatures. If they start out lacking the respect of the voters, they will gradually earn it by the manner of their campaigning. And respect will turn into votes when the time comes.
Republican presidential hopefuls might therefore think of signing up for Abbott’s correspondence course. Fortunately for David Cameron, he won’t need to fork out his $19.99. Mark Textor is the partner (in the international consulting company Crosby-Textor) of Lynton Crosby, whom the British prime minister recently hired as his new principal political strategist.
Very courageous of you, if I may say so, Prime Minister.
— John O’Sullivan is editor-at-large of National Review.
How different the U.S. Senate elections in Missouri and Indiana might have turned out if the GOP candidates had handled the inevitable "abortion exception for rape" questions with similar logic rather than taking the bait.
The problem in this country is a voting block that lives hand to mouth off the social programs of the left. The working class become a smaller share of the electorate everyday. The conservatives need to practically sweep the remaining voters to win a national election.
What we do have that you do not is an opposition leader who we know we are going to have to vote for. If they act credibly in opposition and argue for a different and better way they become electable over time.
If I was the GOP I would be running my candidate race now. Over time the winner would become a spokesperson for the Republican/conservative cause not just a potential Presidential candidate. That’s if you can find a candidate that sticks by the party line and works with others that form a consensus of what the party line actually is - not their own line. e.g. Marco Rubio has gone off the reservation on the immigration issue virtually excluding himself from leadership - at least that is the way it should be but he may still yet be in the race. There is little to no discipline within the GOP - it is each person for themselves and/or their constituents. The basic Party Platform needs to be written in stone by the party and not just individual elites and not negotiable for any candidate. Then it is just a matter of who is the best person to represent that platform. Maybe there are good reasons you don’t do it this way or maybe they are just historical relics best left to a bygone era.
I think conservatives can learn much from this Aussi election, I don’t believe GOPe can learn anything from anyone, anywhere, at any time.
RE: The same is certainly true for Australia. They delved WAY deeper into Socialism decades ago than this country has ever dared attempt.
One thing that Australia seems to be doing better than America is this — THEY HAVE A SANER IMMIGRATION POLICY.
Their SKILLED LABOR MIGRATION and POINTS SYSTEM policy has been in place for nearly a generation.
They don’t share a land border with any country and they TURN BACK most who try to sneak in by boat.
You’d be right in your assumption if you correct it to a denial that slavery took place in OZ.
http://articles.latimes.com/1991-10-13/news/mn-745_1_south-sea-islanders
They tried to bury their own history. The Germans tried the same of the holocaust. The complete history of WWII was “neglected” in German schools. It wasn’t pretty when the truth came out. One of the reasons Germany has outlawed home schooling?
Racism is also strong in OZ. Seems to me that recently there was some sort of keep Australia white movement.
OZ is populated with people just as flawed and who made as many mistakes as Americans have. They also treated the Aboriginals pretty poorly.
The NappyOne
Rape is act of violence; so is abortion. Each treats a human being as subject to abuse by another.
That’s the route that Newt took running up to the ‘94 election. Unfortunately Newt was an unsteady hand on the rudder. We will see how Abbott does.
As a result of the moral purists refusal to recognize this fact, we have an elected government full of Satancrats who send a ten thousand times more infants to slaughter than could ever be done with a rape exception only.
The rape exception exists because many cases are like trees falling in the woods. We often just can’t know. A woman may be raped with little evidence of violence because she did not resist or because the rapist did not behave brutally. We can be sure of is that a woman is pregnant. So the law allows the abortion for the same reason that it allows exceptions of other sorts: we should follow the evidence and when we no longer can , turn back.
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