This morning’s Sydney Morning Herald predicted that the forthcoming federal election will be a landslide for the ALP’s Kevin Rudd. But this graph — showing the pattern of Labor’s two-party preferred poll results leading up to the last elections — suggests that it might be too early to claim that.
According to the oz politics blog, the source of this graph:
Headlines proclaiming that Howard’s spoiling strategy had failed are a little premature. Howard is playing a medium term game. It is the standard two pronged game: pander to the punters and slam the opposition at every possible turn. The effectiveness of Howard’s medium term strategy cannot be judged after a few short weeks. If previous election years are any guide, It was not until the middle of the year that a recovery trend (from Howard’s perspective) was evident. Howard only achieved positive polling territory from the middle to late in the third quarter of the year.
Only time will tell…
