Incumbency and a buoyant economy

I'm watching the current round of Australian state elections with some interest. The main game is to spot those factors that are consistent across the broad range of electoral dynamics.

The Queensland poll is bearing down with the incumbent Labor government still looking strong, despite a host of eminently attackable weak spots.

NSW faces up early next year, with polls showing their incumbent Labor crew in a good early position, despite an equally iffy record.

One of Australia's top strategists, sort of a Rove with class, is Grahame Morris. He usually tweaks the Labor side, but is always ready with sage advice.

For example he told the Liberal (opposition) leader, Peter Debnam, that he had to "throw a few more ideas into the melting pot" if he wanted to defeat Iemma's Labor at the election due on March 24 next year.

Morris also reflected that "even the worst Labor government in the country looks good if the national economy looks good".

Looks good for who? Apart from that the economy is largely seen as a Federal issue even though NSW is the largest portion of it. But Morris insists that "incumbency is a very powerful weapon" in a buoyant economy.

It is all optics I guess, or as one guy once told me, "if it isn't logical it's politics."

In fact another key issue counting against the state NSW Liberals is that the organisation has essentially been kidnapped by the religious right.

NSW is neither profoundly religious or particularly right wing so the Liberals, regardless of how centrist their parliamentary Representatives might be, have a hard sell on that basis alone.

NSW voters not easily ruffled by anything which does not touch impinge on them personally. Both side will no doubt launch a major 'law 'n order' attack closer to polling day, but that will cancel itself out as each strive to outdo the other in idiotic claims.

So it does keep coming back to economics from the voters perspective, and if their is no real need for economic change they will just vote for the incumbent and head off to the beach.