OK
The true believers are preparing to take their punishment on the chin. All are aware that Gillard is about to lead them into oblivion, and there’s not a thing they can do about it.
Is it loyalty to their dying heroine? Not really. The factions can be ruthlessly disloyal when it suits but they have stuffed up big time this time.
Union factions, who decide the structure and future of the ALP, have led their Party to the most frustrating political dilemma in history and the blame rests squarely with Ludwig, Carr, Shorten and to a lesser extent, Howes.
When the unions’ Left and Right called a temporary truce to bestow a socialist Left woman of criminal background and limited ability with a Prime Ministership it could only ever have ended in tears... but the tears are not shed by her. It is we the people who are crying for her removal.
Of course Shorten is pivotal in the Gillard dilemma. It was he who organised her anointment. The factions are now saying to Shorten, “You got us into this mess, Bill, now you willl get us out of it!”
But does anyone seriously believe that good little Bill will organise the reinstatement of the despised Rudd?
Okay, so polling shows Rudd might save three front benchers. The truth is he can’t save anyone. Rudd would simply force a regurgitation of all that is historically wrong with this Labor Government.
The LNP has a vault of advertising material ready to run that would make cat’s meat of Rudd, including what his own Party says of him: “A psychotic megalomaniac”, and much more.
The factions might also consider that the focus of this election campaign will be illegal immigration and thousands of drownings.
And who was responsible for dismantling our borders? Oh yes, I remember now, it was the good ol’ recently well-fed Rudd.
His busloads of staged backslappers in shopping malls across marginal seats merely grate on Gillard. They have no electoral significance.
Six weeks of Coalition advertising would condemn Rudd to a worse electoral liability than Gillard. More Labor seats would be at risk.
Even Shorten isn’t that stupid... well, maybe he is that stupid because Labor’s powerbrokers rarely consider recent history.
Like Rudd, there was another Labor PM who was unceremoniously knifed in Office. People showed outrage and this time they weren’t busloads of paid backslappers.
Hundreds of thousands filled the capitals’ streets to declare their allegiance to the assassinated one. It seemed the whole nation was in outrage.
But when the nation came to vote it was jolted by massive memory recall. The reasons why this PM was killed off became crystal clear, the nation voted accordingly, and it was a Labor wipeout.
Could the assassinated Rudd’s chances be any different? Not really, but they could be much worse.
Whitlam was a statesman who had presence, vision and unfinished reforms to attend to. Rudd is an earwax-eating grubby public servant with a nasty history and women's hands who craves attention... and his Party detests him.
At least Whitlam’s Party was steadfastly behind him and even that wasn’t enough to attract the electorate. What hope does Rudd have to save some furniture? Zero and none.
Common sense dictates Rudd should never be reinstated but this is an ALP run by intellectually challenged unionists who have never entertained common sense.
If I was Abbott I would be wetting my pants with excitement at the prospect of a Rudd return... and if I was Shorten I would be (word deleted) my pants at the very thought of it.
