“Psycho” Morrison fatally alienates the centre: polls

It had to happen. The truth is out about “Psycho” Morrison. The community has his measure. He’s a fearmongering nutjob with no ideas and plans for the nation or its people.

Hence, now, every time the “Psycho” reverts to his tried and true methods of divide and conquer, all he does is reaffirm this community view. Given he has no other method, he’s a goner.

To wit, “Psycho” Morrison has now butchered the Coalition’s natural lead on China and national security:

Scott Morrison’s efforts to politicise Australia’s complex relationship with China seems to be further soiling his own flagging reputation.

Like a bull in the proverbial, he has spent the past fortnight bombarding the airwaves with hastily googled dossiers and cold war-era panics to suggest an Albanese government would become an antipodean branch office of the Beijing Politburo.

Large sections of the national gallery have embraced his China pivot, breathlessly reporting the attacks on Labor, amplifying intelligence community blowback and catastrophising operational incidents that would normally demand sober assessment rather than tabloid splashes.

But this week’s Guardian Essential Report suggests the Australian public is neither as excitable nor gullible as sections of the media, with Labor regarded as the party better placed to manage Australia’s relationship with China.

Now that is one amazing result that Coalition strategists should look upon and despair. “Psycho” Morrison has so overplayed his hand that he has made himself the issue over China.

This is fatal. Contemporary elections are won and lost by occupying the zone of acceptable policymaking on either side of the centre of bourgeois values. An entire election can hinge on a single issue if it is pushed outside of this zone.

There are plenty of examples of this in recent decades. John Hewson’s GST. Paul Keating’s arrgoance. Kim Beazley’s boats. John Howard’s Work Choices. Kevin Rudd’s mining tax. Julia Gillard carbon tax.

And now “Psycho” Morrison has made the same mistake by allowing his character to be revealed for what it is, an extreme loon far outside of the norm of centrist Australian experience.

Labor has played this smart by giving the “Psycho” nothing to attack. This has exposed his vile emptiness. For future reference, if you find yourself in a similar circumstance in your organisation then this is how you rid yourself of the freak. Put him/her in a transparent process and they will blow themselves sky-high with transparent drama for all to see.

This election is all but over. Even the most LNP-biased poll in the country is now unequivocal:

Voters have cut their support for Prime Minister Scott Morrison during a fierce political argument over leadership and national security, with 56 per cent saying he is doing a poor job compared to 50 per cent one month ago.

Only 38 per cent of voters believe Mr Morrison is doing a good job, down from 41 per cent last month, in a setback for the government as it struggles to win back Australians before the election due by May.

The findings are part of a new survey that shows the Coalition’s primary vote has slipped from 34 to 33 per cent over the past month while Labor’s core support held at 35 per cent.

The Resolve Political Monitor, conducted for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age by research company Resolve Strategic, finds the Greens have held their primary vote at 10 per cent while smaller parties and independents have the remaining 22 per cent.

The Coalition gained 41 per cent of the primary vote at the last election but is now at its lowest level since the Resolve surveys began last April, leading Resolve director Jim Reed to say the Coalition was close to “rock bottom” with its base support.

Barring a catastrophe, like a Russian ICBM landing on Sydney, which the “Psycho” is working on, this election is over before it begins.