Worm Turns
I watched the leadership debate last night, although I wasn't expecting anything of any interest to come out of it, and Tony Abbott and the Liberals aren't getting my vote anyway. It seemed worth watching nevertheless, if only to gauge the respective performances. No kidding, these are acts, stage shows, scripted to the greatest extent possible, even with the moderator throwing in follow-up questions and pressing for answers more directly to the point than provided.

Julia Gillard was assured and calm throughout, never off-message. She was good natured, even when zinging Abbott, pressing home on sore points from the last election, points Abbott could only disingenuously respond to. His repetition of "respect for the decisions of the electorate" mean only that if he gets back into power, that has to mean the electorate wants John Howard back. That ship has sailed, Tone.

Abbott generally performed poorly. This was schoolboy vs. schoolmarm. He stumbled, mis-spoke, and looked shifty. His attempts to re-smear Gillard and Labor with their errors and failures - and there have been a few - painting them as an ineffective government, fell flat. I admit they would have done so with me anyway, but I think I can be assured in my assessment, based on the other reason I watched the show: the worm.

As the debate proceeded, audience members, selected for their purported "swing" status, rated the statements and query replies each leader provided. The real-time line graph running along the bottom of the screen was split between men and women, with a third line showing the overall rating. There are a couple of points worth making here. First, the worm is distracting. It's difficult to focus on what's being said if you're watching to see how it's coming across. I expect it's no less so distracting to try to key in a rating while you're listening, and seeing the line ticking up and down second by second it's pretty clear that the audience members had to be pretty frantically hitting those keys.

Another aspect is how consistently the audience was split. Women favoured Gillard substantially above men's ratings, even when men were positively inclined. Women also pretty consistently rated Abbott low, but where he failed to resonate with men, the women were more in line with the ratings men returned, so that the average overall tracked very closely.

Finally, by running the worm in three lines, the broadcasters have made the gender divide the central issue of the campaign. They've been pushing this line from day one of Abbott's leadership, as his standing with women has been a consistent theme of his political life, but that's been more a joke than a serious analysis of the state of play. Not anymore. Gillard's the new Thatcher, or the new Hillary, anyway, and that's where the campaign will stay. Once Labor are returned to power - and they will be - we'll have Australia's first elected Prime Minister. I don't doubt that Labor and Gillard see this as a message to hold on to. The Liberals, on the other hand, may wish they had someone other than Julie Bishop to put forward.

The Next Three Years (approx.)
So having taken the leadership and the Lodge in a spill, Julia's now set to take the country to the polls: 21 August will see us decide if we want the Mad Monk or Ms. Gillard to lead. I like her chances, although it does seem the media's pretty well intent on bringing down Labor, if for no other reason than that they think they can. God knows their take on Abbott is disparaging when it isn't simply incredulous. My own take on this is that the Fairfaxes and Murdochs and Packers and Stokes think they were instrumental in the downfall of Howard, the longest serving PM since Menzies, so doing in Labor as a one-term government, largely if not entirely unprecedented, would see the MSM as king-makers for years to come. It's a fanstasy, not unlike Osama bin Laden's belief that having seen the exit of the USSR from Afghanistan he could do the same easily to the "sole remaining superpower". Even if Labor is ousted, newspapers and television news are going to struggle for audience share and profitability, not to mention credibility, something they sorely lack here as it is.

Anyway, I'll preference Labor, I suppose, if only because to preference the Greens is futile and might see Tony Abbott too often at Kirribilli House for my taste, not to mention the hash he'd make of this country if he had half a chance. I'm just sorry he's got half a chance in August.

Run, Walk, Sit
If it's true that sitting will kill you sooner no matter what, maybe this weekend I should go buy one of these ergonomic chairs.

Calamari
The octopus is a witch! Cook it!

(O.k., that's not nice. Instead, let it go.)