Radio National watch: When a stranger calls

I have to give the ABC credit when and where it's due. This morning, Radio National AM gave considerable coverage to a news item not calculated to win any new friends for the ALP. It concerns the leaking of an ACTU manual describing a program to target union members in marginal seats and none-too-subtly pressure them in case they are in any doubt about how to vote. The money quote is a perfect distillation of the bitterness, paranoia and self-righteousness of the professional unionist. Cold-callers who find that their subject might actually have the temerity to prefer the Coalition are advised thusly:

"It may be despicable to you that the member may agree with some of the Federal Government's policies. But avoid getting into heated arguments; such debates are likely to make the member dig their heels in."

Good advice, that. Avoid abusing someone you've just rung up at their own home, without invitation, probably while they were getting dinner or putting the kids to bed. Maybe they save that for the doorknock with baseball bats later on. Almost as sinister is the advice:

"Callers are asked to pay particular attention to the language members use, and to find out about their ambitions and if they have a family or a mortgage."

Perhaps there's also something in the manual about making knuckle-cracking noises at appropriate moments, or soft warnings about how "accidents" can happen, tsk, tsk, tsk.

The somnambulists

As I may have said already, watching the ALP/commentariat in the last few federal elections has been like watching a sleepwalker who gets up in the middle of the night, walks over to the window, falls out of it, and wakes up in the garden below, picking twigs out of his hair and wondering how he got there - and the next night does the same thing all over again.

This sleepwalking is a matter of picking issues dear to themselves, but to which the larger electorate are indifferent or even hostile, and deciding that these are the key election issues. Today's example: the Age runs a front page article informing us that evil big business is scheming to neutralise what would otherwise be - and I quote - a "major federal election issue". Any guesses? It's the advertising of 'junk' food to children. If I needed a sign that Howard is going to romp it in in November, this would be it.

I'm almost sorry that the David Hicks issue has so completely and suddenly disappeared. I was really counting on this being yet another tripwire for the sleepwalkers. (Julian! Are you there? Feel free to stop by!)

One day in November

Just want to lay this one down good and early: John Howard will romp it in this November. Why? The question is really, rather, why won't he lose? Simple: the two issues which the commentariat and their political wing, the ALP, have decided are the key issues - climate change (pffft!) and industrial relations.

Climate change is the ultimate 'doctor's wives' issue, and has no significant electoral traction. As for IR, did I miss something? The laws came in, the sky didn't fall in, the economy ignited its second-stage boosters and went into orbit. Then when the election appeared over the horizon, we're suddenly in the ALP's off-Broadway tryout of Les Miserables. ALP pollster Rod Cameron summed it up, saying that the unions who will supposedly win it for Rudd are:
"very unpopular and they are not part of most people's lives - The majority of voters are anti-union and they don't want the unions back in their lives."

'Reset' switch for moonbats

I see where President Bush is having trouble with his bill to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants in America. Whatever happens to the bill, it has at least been useful to me. On two occasions recently, when trapped in an argument with some raving moonbat (something I will normally do anything to avoid, short of jumping from a moving car or a second-storey window), I have managed to short-circuit them by raising Bush's bill. When I tell them that Satan Bush is actually pushing a bill to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants, it literally stuns them into silence, because (1) they have never heard of this bill, and (2) they simply cannot process it into their narrative of the Bush hegemon. It works a treat: give it a try.