from Crikey .....

Rundle: the topic is cancer - the 2010 election and the collapse of political legitimacy

Guy Rundle writes:

GUY RUNDLE ON THE FEDERAL ELECTION 2010

So let's recap ... two months ago, several key factional (actually small, state-based gangs, formed, like the big C, around the most powerfully malignant cell) leaders in the ALP organised the deposition of a sitting Prime Minister who had beaten John Howard, because a series of polls suggested that their primary vote was too low to guarantee victory, especially in key outer-suburban seats.

The sub-factional heavies acted swiftly, at least in part, to head off News Ltd's obvious destabilisation campaign spruiking Julia Gillard - even though said heavies may have been leaking stuff to the papers to aid this campaign, because Kevin Rudd swore at them.

Having replaced the leader of the country in a few hours of meetings in offices away from the public gaze, said heavies then went immediately into an election based on a selling point of stability through incumbency, made an obvious lie about their capitulation to the mining industry, then having failed to go on the offensive and put the Coalition on the back foot over WorkChoices, opposing the stimulus, and hungrily eyeing a carve-up of Medicare, spent the first two weeks losing ground to the Coalition, proposing disconnected gimmicks such as the citizens assembly on climate change (remember that? A week is a long time in politics) and then relaunching her campaign by saying that the real her hadn't even been present since the poll was called.

Now a fortnight later, with Tony Abbott having survived an appearance on Red Faces, an off-colour "no doesn't mean no" reference, the leader of the Opposition is appearing next to so many babies that if he opened a petting zoo, the dingo standing beside him would have one in its mouth, and simultaneously selling a combination of the Pacific solution "from day one", scaling back the stimulus without creating unemployment, and pushing a business-tax funded parental leave plan of near-Scandinavian generosity while rolling back the nanny state.

At this point, Abbott refused to accept the challenge by Gillard of a second debate that she'd earlier refused to have, while the factional heavies got Kevin Rudd (a character killed off in an earlier chapter) back in to save the election, while simultaneously sorting out the numbers to decide the next leader of the Opposition.

The fake Andrew Bolt, who does a satire blog in the Herald Sun, threatened legal action against the real Andrew Bolt, a twitterer, and, as far as I can tell, then removed that entry from his blog, after 30 "Andrew Bolt" twitter accounts flowered in a day. Then chorus of horror at what a vacuous anti-election this had become was then joined by of all people Paul Kelly saying - Paul effin Kelly saying - that the politics of the major parties were too sameish and devoid of ideas. Finally, Tony Abbott launched the Coalition campaign by claiming that having a family made you a conservative.

Have I got that right? I mean have I got that right? Cos I don't know how the election looks from over there, but from over here - at a cafe in the shadow of Seville Cathedral, admiring the Islamic tile work on the walls of the Alcazar palace, while sharing a half-bottle of amontillado with a young woman who has never seen Andalusia before - it looks like shit; beyond shit - metashit.

M'esteemed colleague Dr Bahnisch asked why, given so many people think this election is boring, what with all the hi-jinks and pile in of ex-PMs (what a pity Billy McMahon couldn't be persuaded to say a few words. Could son Julian McMahon be persuaded to deputise in his place? Again?). The answer is because boredom arises not from a lack of activity, but from a lack of meaningful activity.

This election is boring in the way other people's recounted dreams are boring - because the disconnect between a genuine public political process, and what is going on now, is so total that anything can now follow from anything, and none of it presents a real case about how we should organise things, how we should live our lives, which is what politics is meant to be about.

How the hell did it get to this point? A point where everyone is throwing up their hands in exasperation at a farcical, self-parodic process, while simultaneously serving it at every moment? Was it the Labor Party? The factional leaders? The sub-factional sub-leaders? The media? The system? The establishment? The man? That woman? Or, as m'colleague Keane suggests, youse?

The answer, I think, is all of these and more, except youse, in some strict sense. From multiple separate sources, Australian democracy is in a pretty low state, but much of the breast-beating is a ritualised way of offering obeisance while continuing with business as usual, and short on analysis. It might be worth looking at the array of forces with a little more dispassion.