Amid the welter of commentary and post-mortems among Democrats to explain Kamala Harris’ loss to Donald Trump, there is one theory that has received widespread acceptance. The Democrats made a serious tactical mistake in concentrating too much on Trump, and spent too little time promoting positive messages about Harris.

BY GEORGE BRANDIS....

Admittedly, Harris was an awful candidate – hectoring, annoying, a platitude-mongering avatar of political correctness, faced with the difficult task of defending an incumbent administration at a time when most Americans felt worse off after four years of the Democrats. She was hard to sell.

Nevertheless, the main pitch of the Democrats’ campaign was not to accentuate their positives, but to demonise Trump. They allowed their visceral loathing of him – their granite conviction that he was unfit for the presidency – to dictate their messaging and determine their strategy. Incumbents seldom win that way – particularly in a cost-of-living crisis.

The “demonise the alternative” strategy misses the point that, while for some voters – particularly those who follow politics closely – an election is a binary choice, for many others – especially the less politically engaged – an election is not so much a comparative judgment as a referendum on the government. If people are sick of the status quo, they will use their vote to express their dissatisfaction with the incumbent without paying too much attention to the alternative. Hence, one of the great truisms of politics: oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them.

Anthony Albanese and his ministers give every indication that they have forgotten that rule. From the very start, they have comforted themselves with the idea that Peter Dutton was so unappealing to the electorate that he was “unelectable” (remember Tanya Plibersek’s Voldemort jibe?). As was evident from their attacks on Dutton in the final fortnight of parliament, they have not moved on.

But the electorate has. Sure, Dutton initially had a very high negative rating in the polls – as do all new opposition leaders following a change of government. Albanese’s honeymoon was an unusually long one; Dutton’s numbers stayed low for a very long time.

That is no longer the case – and hasn’t been for more than a year. Today, Dutton’s net favourabilities are better than Albanese’s, while most polls have them neck and neck as preferred prime minister. Even many left-wing journalists score 2024 as Dutton’s year. Yet Labor seems still determined to make the same mistake as the Democrats did with Trump – making their despised opponent the issue as they cling stubbornly to the idea that he is unelectable.

Opposition leaders who are deemed “unelectable” have a remarkably good track record of being elected.

When Tony Abbott became leader of the Liberal Party in December 2009, Labor ministers famously cracked open the champagne to celebrate: there was no way the public would vote for him, they chortled. Barely six months had passed before Abbott had driven Labor into minority government; he was one term away from a landslide victory.

Before 1996, John Howard was considered unelectable. He was seen as yesterday’s man – a recycled former leader whose failure in the 1980s had provoked one of The Bulletin’smost memorable front pages: “Mr 18%: Why on earth does this man bother?” His return to the leadership in 1995 was mocked as proof positive that the Liberal Party had run out of both ideas and talent. Howard went on to lead a four-term government and served for longer than any other prime minister except the great Robert Menzies.

Menzies himself was once almost universally regarded as unelectable. After his unsuccessful prime ministership in 1939-41, he too was written off as yesterday’s man. When he dusted himself off and led his newly formed Liberal Party to a bad defeat in 1946, the whispers around the Melbourne establishment – in those faraway days the Liberal heartland – were “you’ll never win with Menzies”. They did: in 1949, and again in 1951, 1954, 1955, 1958, 1961 and 1963.

The reverse is also true: Australian political history is littered with the failed prime ministerial ambitions of political princelings who once seemed destined for the prize: Evatt, Peacock, Beazley, Shorten. Nobody ever called any of them “unelectable”. But the voters are always wiser than the opinionated insiders of the parliamentary press gallery. As my friend Graham Richardson is fond of saying, “The mob always work you out.”

It’s almost as if being ordained a “future prime minister” is a kiss of death, while being deemed “unelectable” is the ultimate unintended compliment. There may well be more who ultimately make it to The Lodge among the latter category than the former.

Of course, criticism of the alternative leader is an important part of every election campaign. But when attacks on a political opponent are focused on the person rather than policy, it makes the critic look weak – even fearful. As well, making the challenger the issue enlarges him. Trump dominated nearly every day of the presidential campaign because Harris foolishly made it all about him.

Where personal attacks come from the incumbent, they also convey to the electorate the subliminal message that he is reluctant to defend his own record and that he has nothing new to offer.

Nevertheless, I still expect that next year, demonising Dutton will be central to Labor’s campaign – firm in its conviction that he is unelectable – all the way until he is elected.

George Brandis is a former high commissioner to the UK, and a former Liberal senator and federal attorney-general. He is a professor at ANU.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/demonising-dutton-will-backfire-for-labor-just-as-it-did-for-harris-with-trump-20241201-p5kuuo.html

THE DIFFERENCE HERE IS THAT DUTTON HAS NOTHING MUCH TO SELL EXCEPT "NUKULAR" ENERGY WHICH IS HALF AS MUCH POPULAR AS A DEAD ROTTING FISH IN YOUR PETUNIA WINDOW BOX...BUT EVEN TONY ABBOTT WAS UNELECTABLE, UNTIL HE GOT THE GIG AND PROVED TOTALLY INEPT... TURNBULL WAS ELECTABLE BUT HE ALSO WAS TOTALLY INEPT AND EASILY CORNERED BY HIS MATES IN THE (ULTRA-)CONSERVATIVE PARTY OF AUSTRALIA — THE "LIBERALS"....

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME RUSSIA IF WW3 STARTS. BLAME YOURSELF.