Spillard

so the story of the week here in aus (although it had been gathering international attention) is the gillard vs rudd re-spill. After months of tension, trupmed up by the media, we actually have a confrotation when Rubb resigned at an extremely inconvienat time-zone (espeically to his publicists ohh I don't want to think about how wacked their sleep cycles must be) time when he was still in Washington DC. Gillard then made a rather large gamble, but really the only thing she could do, in a winner takes all re-count, and the looser goes to the back bench and relinqhues all leadership ambitions, annoyingly, on the first day on uni, aka the only day I can't watch it live, which also happens to be the day of the oscars! annoyance at uni timetabling!

-Just an observations before we continue on-firstly the media often refers to Julia Gillard as Julia, but never to Kevin Rudd as Kevin, its always Rudd, this is possibly a gender thing, because in environments where people do get called by their last names, girls often get called by their first names, but if it is, it's interesting to note how seeped in gender rolls are-

Anyway I am a Gillard suppoerter, so this post will be biased, but then again it is my blog so deal with it,  but I really think that Rudd winning would be devastating for the labour party, the public has more or less managed to get past the upset in leaders 2 years ago, but another upset is just going to destroy the public's faith in the party. Although we do not run on the american system, and the party can more or less change prime minsters as they will, the parties promote themself by their leader, people vote for either Rudd or Gillard, not usually their local member, or infact sometimes not liberal or labor, the head of the parties really are that, and people want to vote them in, and not whoever the party feels like putting in as the leader, it makes people feel like they have more control, like it is more like a democracy

Thus if Rudd replaces Gillard, not only will the media hype up the possibility of her coming back (where as they might calm down a smidge if Rudd goes to the back bench, feeling like he's contested, failed, so he's less likely to challenge again) so the party will seem to be even more unstable, people won;t feel like their voting in a particular leader, they'll feel like the government, not them, has the power, and I suspect their polling number would initially rise but drop.

Speaking on polling number, Rudd is running a fantastic campaign at the moment, with much higher poling numbers, although these numbers I suspect will not correlate to an election, where people are not interested in supporting the underdog, or supporting Rubb because its the right thing to do, because he was elected in first or whatever (stupid reasons) they'd be looking for stability in government, which with a good media campaign by the liberals, would mean a rather large swing away from any labor government.

Then there is the rather tricky question of the independants to consider, I'm am almost definite their would be further speculation about whether the independants are going to side with labor or not now with Rudd in charge, I believe that they eventually would, but they wouldn't be politicians if they didn't continue to milk their again heightened importance for all it was worth, and depending on how well the liberals play it, there would be a possibility for another election. I don't think an election is very likely, it's another thing that is continuously hyped up by the media, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a possibility, because a lot of the independant have seen their numbers plummit, and thus there is a slight possibility that they can hope to regain some support by now siding with the liberals, or on the condidtion that they will side with them if an election is called.

My point being that if Rudd wins, the crisis isn't over, there is still going to be this massive speculation about leadership, and has Gillard really given up all leadership ambitions and what about the independents and the labor party will just seem very unorganised and chaotic, and that more than any other policy, will loose them the election, baring a miraculous turn around, which based on Rudd's record, seems highly unlikely.

I think Gillard has a good chance of winning, although it is not at all certain, and its quite possibly going to be very close, especially if it is a secret ballet. Gillard has the advantage of being considered the front-runner, thus if it isn't secret ballet a lot of people may vote for her, trying to suck up more or less, because if she does win, its best to show that your loyalties lie with Gillard, and not Rudd, but if it is a secret ballet, then Rudd has a much better chance. Whatever the outcome, it is certainly going to be a very interesting time in politics.