Two recent political exchanges in Australia and the US have thrown up some unlikely prospects. Yesterday we had Julia Gillard napalming Tony Abbot in Parliament, which has kind of gone global (at least according to the MSM). I dare anyone to watch the video below and maintain that Tony Abbott isn’t going to struggle with at least half of the electorate. This adds to the momentum that Labor is already building around the collapse of the carbon issue and interest rate cuts.
Then there is the whooping that Mitt Romney gave Barack Obama which has translated into a quite unexpected poll bounce. From The Australian:
For the first time since he accepted the Republican Party nomination, Mr Romney topped the widely-read poll of polls conducted by the RealClearPolitics website, albeit by only 0.7 points.
And he led Obama by two points in daily tracking polls by Gallup and Investors Business Daily.
The pair were tied in another tracking poll by Rasmussen, with both on 48 per cent.According to the Pew Research centre, Mr Romney has a 49 per cent lead over Mr Obama, who held 45 per cent support among likely voters.
Nevertheless, US polls predicting the result of the popular vote are only one reflection of the race and campaign chieftains are more interested in the eight or so swing states that will decide the election.
Mr Obama is up in most battlegrounds, though full data is yet to emerge on local races following the debate.
It is suddenly conceivable that we could have Tea Party lunatics take over the White House but fail here.
