The Tactics Behind Rudd's Campaign

Rudd's catch cry is, "I'm an economic conservative." What does Howard say about Rudd? He'll put economic prosperity at risk because of union influence , inexperience and the effect of radical climate change policy on our economy. Rudd is taking Howard head on with this claim in a pretty tactical way.

Effective political campaigns are designed on the back of information from focus groups and polling on how voters rate the issues and the personalities of the leaders. And political advisors, or number crunchers run the campaigns.

It is pretty obvious to me that the message that the ALP have been getting from their polling and focus groups, is that we are tired of Howard and don't agree on a lot of his actions. What Rudd is doing in this campaign is to match Howard in many policy areas, the point being to limit the themes Howard can put to the electorate to make voters re-identify with his messages.

Many of Rudd's policies are about 'policy minimisation', placing himself so close to Howard in so many policy areas related to the economy, that Howard can't jump on many continuing anti-ALP themes during the campaign. It's about bleeding Howard dry of ammunition to use on the electorate, because the feedback in internal polling and focus groups the ALP must have been getting from the electorate would have been so strong about dissatisfaction with Howard and a feeling for the need for generational change.

Howard can run with the 'me too' line about Rudd, but I don't think Howard's messages have much traction with the electorate anymore after introducing Work Choices and the debacle of the Iraq War, amongst other matters. Sort of leaves Howard as an empty vessel, who has to catch up a long way in the polls.

Mark Latham may have been a 'true Labor man' but he was dismal failure at the polls. The Liberal party machine behind Howard in campaigns has always been much better run than the ALP's, but this time I think the ALP machine under Rudd may have trumped them.

It's not about how you play the campaign, it's about whether you win the campaign. All the me too'ism on policy may leave Rudd looking empty headed to some voters, but I think the ALP have backed this tactic in to win them more votes than they'll lose; that more voters are just sick of Howard's failings and want a generational change.