A worm in the debate

First I let me say I really don’t see any real value in election leader’s debates. They have the potential but that would mean the participants forgoing the carefully staged, safe debate mode.

When John Howard – conservative (Liberal/Nation coalition) and Kevin Rudd – labor, met on Sunday night it was in an extremely regulated environment. For a start, it is very early in the campaign, presumably to allow Howard a buffer for a poor showing. He’s never won one of these debates.

Questions were carefully vetted to exclude more controversial issues, and the worm was banned, again by Howard. But one channel ignored the ban on the worm and had its feed pulled twice during the broadcast. They ended up taking an alternative feed.

By the time I switched to the word channel, bored with the actual ‘debate’ the feed issue was resolved. I muted the TV and concentrated on body language and the worm. John Howard was obviously having problems remaining calm and controlled. Rudd was more self assured and neither was in any real attack mode.

I missed the audio of Howard’s Liberal deputy being told to shut up and stop interjecting. Perhaps that even added to Howard’s unease. The worm was constantly neutral to negative for Howard and above the neutral line for Rudd.

So the words weren’t worth listening too, but the visuals were very interesting and telling. Following a rise in the polls for the conservatives last week there has been a correction published today which puts Labor on 51% of the primary count.

Here in Lyne we are looking at another positive of this leadership dynamic. If there is a growing swing away from the government we have an opportunity to grabbing some of it as it moves across. The downside here is that Labor is virtually as conservative as the conservatives – nice and safe.