From the AFR:
The Financial Review’s Rebecca Thistleton reports that former PM John Howard has again weighed into the campaign.
He says Kevin Rudd is losing support because the people do not know what his values are.
“I don’t think people have any idea on what he stands for,” Mr Howard said.
…He accused Mr Rudd of being vague, “whether it be deliberately or accidentally”.
“I always drew a quiet sense of satisfaction from people who said, ‘I can’t stand John Howard, I don’t believe in anything he advocates, but at least I know what he stands for,” he said.
That is exactly right in my view. It may be that “honest” John Howard himself was slippery at times but he was always a man of conviction and internally consistent. You could disagree with but not find his views without substance.
Following his return to the leadership, Kevin Rudd spent six weeks whacking down Labor sacred cow policies, in theory to neutralise them politically, and in so doing has only reinforced the perception that he’s vacuous.
He is now so echoing in fact, that an empty opposition campaign led by a man whose values are equally oblique (but less certainly so) is positively substantial by comparison.
