Last year, it seemed the pundits couldn’t speak highly enough of Kevin “Mr 70%” Rudd and his popular appeal with the Australian public.
But this is a new election year with a new Opposition leader, and the pundits’ tone has taken a decidedly more critical turn.
KRudd’s appearance on the ABC’s Q&A on Monday has come under particular scrutiny this morning (the ever on-the-ball mainstream media is only about two days behind Twitter and the blogosphere on this one — The Punch‘s Penbo called it a good 48 hours ago):
The Australian
Peter van Onselen: Tetchy PM fails to satisfy young audience
The performance of Kevin Rudd on Monday night’s ABC TV program Q&A was nothing short of embarrassing.
Dennis Atkins: Tony Abbott buoys Coalition as Rudd loses mojo
Whether or not Abbott and his team have their — or anyone else’s — mojo working is an open question but it certainly looks like Rudd’s mojo is not what it used to be.
Christian Kerr, House Rules blog: Rudd in media whore mode
The PM has already begun his new Sunrise segment. He pops up in this week’s New Idea magazine and Therese is on Better Homes and Gardens this Friday taking Johanna Griggs through the Lodge.
All this and it’s only February.
Sydney Morning Herald
Erik Jensen: How teens took Rudd to the cleaners in question time
The Prime Minster was trounced by an alleged wife beater and former coke addict with a cigarette dispenser tattooed to his arm. It says a lot about his loss of resonance.
David Marr: Question time, but PM’s sense of gravity is stuck in top gear
… there is an odd disjunct in Rudd between tone and subject. He is grave so often. The engine is running but there aren’t many gears.
I watched Q&A. He’s still preaching. he uses the ‘did you know that..’ type condescending line too much. The man shrieks ‘policy merchant’ at 300 feet.
The ‘alcohol at 21’ is a huge beat-up. We got a clear ‘my personal opinion won’t drive evidence-based policy’ statement and what did Abbott do? he said “I’m not a wowser” -this, the man who defends the sheila’s hymen at all costs…
I’m more concerned he couldn’t entirely whitewash the racism argument away. It doesn’t help that his Vic. team-mates and the police are not singing from the same hymn book. Perception management ought to be second nature to this machine, and he certainly didn’t help on a perception front, so I’d say yes, in mojo terms, its slipped a bit.
I bet if the budgie-smuggler had been on, his performance would have been even worse so I suspect a lot of Libs are thinking “there but for the grace of god go I” (mainly because they can’t spell schadenfreude)
you know this is all the opinion of the press only the poll still show 58 percent.
thats why no one bothers expept silly me to reply
Now i have done my research do yours. I have gone and read these and where there was a place to answer we the voting pack turned on them have a look e.g. Eric
He’s increasingly sounding like a preachy pratt. I don’t like to say it, but Abbott’s really coming across ok. The foot in mouth comments he’s made are not likely to hurt him as much as some people think.
I know for a fact that hundreds of younger people submitted questions about the upcoming internet filter to Q & A, but not one appeared on the show. Rudd has so far avoided facing this issue publicly, but he is now suffering for it.
As one of the younger generation who gave Labor full support at the last election, I now can’t stand the sight of this man. He has lost my faith and patience, and with these new plans has basically trashed all the goodwill he gained after getting Australia through the GFC. Labor has also lost my trust, as I suspect it has also lost the trust of many other younger people. If Internet censorship proceeds in the way that Labor is currently proposing, it may take many, many years to ever earn that trust back, by which time they will be out of office, hopefully sooner rather than later.