Word: howard
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...rest of his party as a monumental gaffe. That's precisely why Australians are uncertain of Rudd: is he the Steady Kevvie who's been on show this past year, or is he simply an old-fashioned lefty play-acting the only role that can undo John Howard's rule? Australians will be placing their bets on Saturday...
Costello's point is valid enough, but so is the Rudd approach. Rudd knows Howard was vulnerable at the last election, in 2004. But Labor at that time was led by Mark Latham, who was quick-tempered and volatile, (at one time, he called George Bush as "the most incompetent and dangerous President in living memory"). Latham also espoused ideas too left-wing for a country that likes its politics fought in the center. Clearly, many Australians had tired of Howard and stopped listening to him, but needed a credible alternative before taking the next step of kicking...
Eleven months later, and on the eve of the election, Rudd looks set to drive Howard into retirement and return the ALP to power for the first time since 1996. In some ways, Rudd has had a smoother ride than he might have expected. His elevation to the leadership resulted in Labor immediately overtaking the Liberal-National Coalition government in opinion polls - a lead it hasn't relinquished since. Australians don't even seem to mind that Rudd espouses some of the same policies as Howard. What is important is that Kevin Rudd is not John Howard...
Whether a Labor government would manage Australia's $1 trillion economy as adeptly as have Howard and Costello remains a voter concern, according to polls. However, Rudd has largely defused economic management as an issue. The thrust of his case is that Australia's strong economy is less the result of any judicious handling on the part of the government than of the ongoing minerals boom and watershed reforms undertaken in the 1980s by Labor governments. He's repeatedly cast himself as an economic conservative and tried to prove it by declining to match the government's extravagant spending promises...
Rudd is offering the country just enough tinkering around the edges of government policy in the areas of Iraq (a phased pull out of Australia's 1,400 troops), industrial relations (abolition of an unpopular Howard program) climate change (ratifying the Kyoto Protocol), education (more laptops in high schools) and communications (faster Internet access) to convince Australians that it's worth making a change. "After 11 years, it's now time to turn the page on this government," Rudd says. "Australia is a great country but not as great...