Day 7 report
Yesterday, brought to a close the first full week of the campaign.
The highlight was last night’s election debate, broadcast by the ABC and Channel Nine (with a worm). The worm was very favourable to Kevin Rudd. The final outcome from the select Channel Nine audience was 65 to 29 in Rudd’s favour. Today’s media also scored it a win for Rudd. The Poll Bludger has a comprehensive survey of media statements on last night’s debate.
The worm proved controversial and it was claimed that Nine’s feed for the debate was cut because it used the worm in breach of the agreed rules for the debate. For the record, a worm win is no guarantee of electoral success. According to Annabel Crabb, “It awarded the debates of 1998 and 2001 to Kim Beazley by big margins, and the 2004 debate to Mark Latham. In each case the Worm thrived in the campaign but ate dirt on election day.”
John Howard used the debate to announce elements of the Coalition’s climate change policy including a commitment to a new international agreement that includes China and the United States, and a fund to help those on low incomes pay their energy bills after they have been inflated by a carbon tax. However, there was no detail on the Coalition’s website this morning.
While there is nothing on the ALP website this morning, the media reported that Labor would increase the Child Care Tax Rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent.
The Coalition calculated that it’s fnal (ie in six years time) tax policy would be better for people with annual incomes between $38,000 and $100,000. Andrew Leigh completed a distributional analysis of the Coalition and ALP tax proposals.
If you have not tried it already, go to the Whack a Poll election predictor.
It’s a couple of days old now, but the Courier Mail has sampled the good, the bad and the ugly from YouTube in the first week of the campaign.
Update: In my numerous discussions today about the debate, two consistent messages emerged. First, while the consensus was that Rudd won the debate, it was a pretty close call. It was no slam-dunk win for Rudd, and the win was more for style than content. Second, the worm was overly favourable to Rudd and did not adequately assess the merits or content of the debate. When Rudd was speaking, but before he had said anything much, the worm was often half way into positive territory. With Howard, it often started below the zero axis. The worm was variously described by most people in the following contradictory terms: addictive, captivating, annoying and wrong. Nonetheless, while the worm may not have reflected accurately the content of the debate, it may have reflected the perceptions that have seen Rudd ahead of Howard in the opinion polls in 2007.