Maybe frenching some infants is too obvious a cliché. So I present here, in no particular order, a list of events that I believe have some reasonable chance of happening during Election 2010.
- Wilson "Ironbar" Tuckey or Bill "Barren" Heffernan will make some ill-advised comments about Julia Gillard's marital status/child-free status/female status. Steve Fielding from Family First could weigh in here too, possibly with some ammunition on the whole "atheist" front.
- Election songs: everyone needs a good election song. Mark Latham famously chose INXS' "New Sensation", but the only sensation that brought on was one of impending doom. Bill Clinton got his sax on with the Fleetwood Mac classic "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow". Of course, John Howard preferred stony respectful silence to any music at all. I'm recommending obscure mid-90s groove pop for Julia; unless she'd prefer to capitalise on her new slogan a bit more with some booty-shakin' funk. As for Abbott? Well, he could try to seduce the metalheads with some Black Sabbath; or skew more towards his Mad Monk reputation.
- In the vein of the Barry O'Farrell's "deeply off the record" faux pas, there'll be another Twitter controversy. It could involve any one of the politicians embracing the social networking phenomenon; or more likely, one of their staffers saying the wrong thing on an official Twitter account.
- Some candidate somewhere will get disendorsed. Possibly because a terrible secret's revealed, like they went to prison, or did some stuff behind the bike sheds at school that one time, or kicked a puppy for a bet.
- Kevin Rudd will dip his toe in the water somewhere along the line. It could be on purpose, but more likely he'll answer a question slightly off the cuff and everyone will get terribly excited. "Revenge from the backbench" etc.
- Someone will screw up some costings on an election promise. Like proudly announce a highway will cost only $1 billion to build, before having to step up red-faced the next day to say that's only at 2003 prices.
- Journalists will continue to be over-eager to use the phrase "Eden-Monaro" in reports. See also: "the bell-weather seat".
- A radio station somewhere (I'm looking at you, commercial breakfast teams) will draft Gillard and/or Abbott into a ridiculous prank/promotion/lie detector test/pash-a-thon.
- Confusion will reign during the Great Debate when the audience fails to tell the difference between the worm and Tony Abbott.
Feel free to add your own predictions in the comments below, and let's tick them off as they occur!
Eden Monaro sounds like a car dealership.
ReplyDeleteNo labor politician will say backwards this campaign.
ReplyDeleteOne of your election predictions has come true, GC. When Gillard said that her Super Mining Tax rework will only drop Kevvie's proposed revenue by $1.5 billion, that was what is known in layman's terms as a "lie". The correct figure is $7.5 billion - dropping the expected $12 billion figure down to $4.5 billion in revenue. Wayne Swan has admitted they fudged the figures based on massively overinflated future ore price predictions, and the presumption that the GFC is over.
ReplyDeleteClever GC!
There will probably be a little fizz about Gillard's lack of support for gay marriage. But only a little fizz. (Possibly Passion Pop.)
My prediction was that the Labor government would launch their campaign based on the presumption that Julia's recent bumbling, lying and backstabbing will be overlooked by voters, solely because she is a woman. In other words, the presumption that Australian voters are all mouth breathing morons without a brain cell to share between us. Certainly, the media is pushing the whole "yeah, but no, but yeah, but... she's a woman! How historic", (as if that makes any difference to how the country will be run!) so one can only wonder if our media moguls have an agenda, or if they've received a memo from the PM(S) asking them to do her dirty work for her.
Sure, it would be nice for them if the general public WAS that stupid. But we're not. The ONLY thing that can win the election for Labor is the knowledge that the other major party is led by Tony Abbott. *shudder*
At this rate, I'm thinking Bob Brown looks like a good prospect. How did we stoop so low?