The “Leaders Debate”.

#1: On the big sign behind the two debaters, where was the bloody apostrophe? Was it a title – “Leaders‘ Debate”? Or was it a statement – “Leaders Debate”? – in which case, where was the bloody fullstop? Fucking country’s being invaded by fucking illiterates. No, wait, they’re “home-grown” illiterates.

#2: Sir Roger was watching the Channel 7 worm. Here are his first impressions.

He was quite amused by Abbott’s attempt at a thrilling new concept: Tony Abbott, Action Man, brings you his “ACTION CONTRACT!” One of his political advisors thought this up, for sure, and the worst thing is that Abbott didn’t have the political nous to realise that it is cheesy and transparently an attempt to fool people that he’ll ever be anything other than just another politician.

Channel 7′s worm showed a clear distinction between responses of the women and the men (unlike the Channel 9 worm). The difference was so stark that it seemed almost as if Morgan had only two handsets and gave them to a married couple on the brink of an acrimonious divorce.

Women like Gillard and seriously dislike Abbott.
Men seriously dislike Gillard and like Abbott.
Women like Gillard more than men like Abbott.

Both men and women like Gillard’s idea of stopping people leaving the port of origin before they even get on board the boats. Why? Sir Roger conjectures that that is because when they get on the boats we are forced into a moral conflict between our fear of the invaders and the disruption we fancy they might cause to our comfortable society on the one hand, and our comfortable fantasy that we are a generous, welcoming and humane people, on the other. If they don’t get on the boats in the first place we will never have to face the fact that we are increasingly becoming, in a world we see as increasingly threatening, a greedy, hard people.

Climate change is a big downer for both men and women which suggests that Gillard’s community consensus policy is a big mistake.

The worm crashed for both men and women when either “leader” said they’d tell the truth to the Australian people, or be “fair dinkum”. No-one believes either of them. People expect them to lie, know they lie, and don’t like them telling direct lies and asking to be believed. That is treating people as fools.

Neither women nor men liked them putting each other down.

Both women and men, but especially men, really dislike the way Gillard took Rudd’s job and her refusal to talk about it.

Tony’s summing up fell flat. He didn’t really get the lift he would have wanted when he talked about the economy. This “takeout” is fairly crucial. It is known that people, whatever the content that went before, remember the last impression. That’s why they always have cute animal stories at the end of the tv news bulletins. People remember enjoying the news, even if there were deaths and wars in the beginning.

So who won? Well, Channel 9 says their worm gave it 67% to Gillard. Don’t think that’s right. Channel 7′s worm analysis gave it to Gillard although website visitors are giving it resoundingly to Abbott. Don’t think that’s right, either. 9′s Oakes gave it marginally to Abbott. But as he remarked, it was a debate between political midgets. So there was a loser and it’s the Australian people.

[tags]election, politics, Australian election, federal election, Australia, political values, Australian political values, Gillard, Abbott, worm, leaders debate[/tags]