Alas, Poor Latham
With all our friends gathered 'round to watch the returns on the ABC, Labor lost its bid to take over government for the next three years, and Howard got back in office, and with a noticable addition of seats, if just to salt the ALP's wounds. While I'm disappointed, I'm not really surprised, because the pundits, including the bookies, have been pegging the Coalition to win even despite the various swings in the poll results, which have gone either way from week to week over the campaign. Howard ran his campaign well, choosing to stress issues designed to trigger fear in the electorate, whether fear of terrorists, fear over Mark Latham's relative inexperience as a front-bencher, or fear of an interest rate rise. Once again, it appears that - if not lies - untruths have won the day. In the previous election, lies that illegal immigrants were going to flood the country and were so unprincipled as to throw their children overboard and therefore unworthy of Australian compassion, drove the ballots in favor of the Liberal/National Party Coalition. This time, the electorate believed that extraordinary interest rates would return upon Mark Latham becoming Prime Minister (even though this is controlled by the independent Reserve Bank), or that Latham's having been in Parliament for only a relative short time would prove him incompetent, or that the Iraq adventure was a more valid choice than developing relationships with southeast Asian neighbors.

Well, we had a lovely party just the same: food, drink, good friends and new. Photos can been seen at Flickr. (You known the drill: click on the small images to view them larger. Notes have been added, so mouse over the faces in the group shot for additional commentary.) Next month's party up at Bar Broadway (for the other big election this year, not to slight the Afghans) will hopefully have a better outcome. I'm sure the crowd will be equally congenial.