Kevin Rudd famously said that he was looking forward to “messing” with the Prime Minister’s mind. Recent comments suggest that he “knows” the Prime Minister’s mind. I heard him say it before, and he has repeated it again today – the election will be called in six weeks.
The Labor strategy is fairly obvious. Try to force Howard into an early election by redefining “full term” and then suggest that if he doesn’t meet the invented deadline he is scared to go to one.
An early election suits Labor. The more familiar voters get with the Rudd ALP the more likely they are to see things they don’t like. It’s also difficult to maintain momentum when you’re the opposition and have come out of the blocks very hard. Stunts become harder to come by, and as they become less novel they work less well.
The longer time goes on, Howard also has a better chance of getting Rudd’s measure.
Calling an election in 6 weeks time would be absurd. It would be the week of the 10th of September, the week of the Rugby League semi-finals, and two weeks before the finals. The AFL final is on the 29th of September. It might suit Kevin Rudd to have 3 out of the 4 weeks of an election campaign over-shadowed by football finals, but it should suit no-one else, including the electorate. Merely suggesting it makes him look half-smart.
Which means that Rudd has served up an opportunity to the government to get on top of him. Rather than forcing Howard to go early he gives him an opportunity to portray Rudd as wanting to sneak into office without giving electors the chance of giving him a proper examination. Either that, or a nerd so gauche and out-of-touch that he didn’t even realise that while politics is important, football is the salvation of the nation.