Some people are hoping that Trump doesn’t see the beginning of a second term. Mitchell Harvey explains why they shouldn’t hold their breath and how Trump might be a continuing fixture in their lives.
With the second recount for the seat of Herbert beginning tomorrow night, one thing’s for sure: marginal seats get a lot of attention. What might a swing against an incumbent mean for you?
Yannis Goutzamanis applies Anthony Downs’ original Paradox of Voting to our federal elections. Do Australians really benefit from voting?
How things change. In my last article on the Presidential Election, from the United States, I suggested that the election hadn’t really engaged the voting public, with the coverage at the time focusing on the missteps within Mitt Romney’s campaign and the support the President was receiving in public polling.
But with the Republican’s exceptional performance in the first Presidential Debate and the President’s seeming disinterest the election was thrown back into tossup status.
If I’ve learnt anything during my two-week visit to the United States it’s that this a country of unparalleled contrasts.
There’s the powerful marriage of individuality and a sense of community, unlike anywhere else on earth.
George Megalogenis’ quarterly essay titled ‘Trivial Pursuit: Leadership and the end of the reform era’ highlights the worrying lack of political leadership on both sides of the parliament in the aftermath of the 2010 Australian federal election. It argues that political short-termism and party politics has become the order of the day, leaving proper policy debate and detailed analysis out of the picture. It means that governments are focussing on winning the next 24-hour news cycle, or the next opinion poll rather than focussing on creating an enduring economic reform agenda that builds on our prosperity in Australia. Many prominent Australian journalists, including Megalogenis and Annabel Crabb of the ABC, have vowed not to discuss opinion polls to reflect their distaste of the current political atmosphere.