How bad is politics, right? Even Barack Obama can’t make people believe he stands on principle.
The New York Times carries a poll today that shows the vast majority of voters — 67% of survey respondents — believe Obama embraced gay marriage “mostly for political reasons”. Fewer than a quarter of those polled said he waved the rainbow flag “because he thinks it is right”. As the paper writes:
“The results reinforce the concerns of White House aides and Democratic strategists who worried that the sequence of events leading up to the announcement last week made it look calculated rather than principled.”
That was largely Joe Biden’s fault after he jumped the gun and backed gay marriage days earlier. But it also speaks of a cancerous cynicism among punters. Even when they’re telling the truth, nobody believes they’re telling the truth.
That ship sailed for Julia Gillard long ago. And the government knows it. There’s nothing very principled about Labor’s agenda, aside from a fatalistic stubbornness on the carbon tax. Only cold, hard cash.
And here’s the bad news: it works. As The Australian reports today:
“Labor’s targeted cash handouts to lower-income earners have earned the Gillard government a small political reprieve, with its primary vote lifting to 30 per cent for the first time in two months.”
Three Newspoll points = $4.9 billion in family payments over four years. That’s (small) change people really do believe in.
Yes, we the people have become cynical and the cynicism starts from the politicians, is nurtured by the media and gobbled up by the consumer. We could insist that we only eat wholesome meals but that junk food is convenient, easy and it’s just everywhere.
Reminds of the day The Age dedicated 5 journalists and a page and a half to Mark Arbib’s resignation. Each of the journos heard what the senator had to say and none believed him and told us so. Looking back, it seems that what he said was what he meant.
Yeah I’m sorry but I don’t particularly believe BO either. He will probably win the Presidential race due to being the best of a bad bunch. Politics in the states is totally corrupt and undemocratic. If the man were genuine he wouldn’t have made it anywhere close to the presidency, let alone win. What he does well is appear to be credible and that’s the most anyone can hope for. Neither he nor Romney appear to believe in anything, they just read the autocue. Imagine someone truely plain speaking making president, like Bob Brown? Nah, I can’t either, it’ll never happen!
labor abandoning there progressive principles has a lot to do with there fall from grace
why become a right wing party, we already have one in the liberal party with there national sidekicks
BUT if you get right wing red neck propaganda shoved down your throat and into your eyes day in day out year after year a lot of people will start beleiving that whats there listening and watching is true
australians have been subject to the murdoch press running the political agenda in this country since whitlam got the flick in 1975
ill give you a case in point , im in bangkok at the moment for a couple of weeks and was having a quite beer with a guy i met over here previously from mackay in qld, he is doing quite well owning a rental property business in that city
i know he is a red hot liberal supporter so politics has never been on my mind too much talking to him as i could not be bothered arguing the point with him, but last night we got talking about aust politics and the subject came up about greece and europe and how there economies were going terrible and i says to him, well at least the austrlain ecomomy is going good compared to the rest of the world even if its a 2 speed with the mining boom etc, he fully understands this as mackay where he comes from has some of the highest rents in australia being close to the big coal fields in qld
and what does the imbicile say to me and thats what he is an imbicle ” oh well labor has ruined the economy again and tony abbott and the liberals will have to fix it up again ”
with that i told him to gf and walked out never to be spoken to again
@CairnS50 will probably miss seeing Tandberg’s cartoon in today’s Age, but here’s a word picture.
The media are interviewing Tony Abbott. One journo turns to another and says “Should we question Abbott’s economic credibility?” The other responds “Our job is to bring down the Government, not the Opposition!”.
Congratulations to Tandberg for accurately pinpointing the issue with a partisan media; they only find fault with the Gillard Government, very rarely publish rebuttals of Opposition deceptions or total misrepresentation, or publish the Government line.
So CairnsS50 your man from Mackay will only read or hear what the Abbott sycophants want him to hear; and holds an ill-informed opinion. Regrettably Mackay isn’t alone and will vote in an appallingly inept Opposition.
Enjoy your holiday, assuming you want to come back.
Tony Abbott is being sued for defamation of a union member, I just know the media will all start demanding he step down until it is resolved.
Won’t they?