In 2002, the ALP had stabilised and recovered ground and the Libs had stopped fighting. People overwhelmingly moved back to the ALP and Liberals therefore limiting the Democrats chance of maintaining the 1997 result. That is fact and reality.

If we put how the Democrats are doing in the context of after the 2004 Federal election, the SA Democrats are doing much better than their federal counterparts did.

Many people deeply regret the departure of Aiden Ridgway and the loss of the other Democrats, and the weakening of the constructive and moderating role they played for years in the Senate.

If complaining about Government lies/ waste, avoiding public scrutiny, invading another country, locking children up like animals, destroying wages/ conditions for low paid workers, deporting Australians, polluting the planet, spreading paranoia at the expense of an identifable minority, bribing voters, funding Saddam, ALP inaction, etc is “wingeing”, then the Australian Democrats should wear that insult as a badge of honour.

Melbourne, 16 March

Actually in that election, Meg Lees said that if the Howard government is elected and Australian public voted for a GST, the democrates will allow the GST to become law, after some changes, which was what they did.

It was all the bickering that happened afterward between Democrats senators that led to the demise of the Democrats.

The 2004 federal senate election shows that the Democrats lost the liberal leaning voters. In every state in that election, it was Democrat down 2-3% liberal up 5%, like it or not, the collapse of the Democrat led to the Howard Government controlling the senate.

Rather than “keeping the bastard’s honest” they were quite keen to hop into bed with the bastards.

The Federal Liberals gave us the GST but its the Democrats that are paying the political price (and rightly so – thanks to Meg Lees).

After all the Liberals told every one up front what their intentions were (whether you agrred with them or not) and managed to win the election with less than 50% of the 2PP vote.

The Democrats on the other hand said “Vote for us..we wont allow a GST, AND we will keep the bastards honest”.

The rest is history and the electorate has obviuously come to the conclusion. Better vote for the bastards that we think can deliver something in Government than for a whinging bunch of hypocrites – called the Democrats.

Oh and there candidate is also an incumbent

with all that in mind i wouldn’t say 2-4% is worth making to much noise about.

After looking at his website, I wonder why he didn’t take part in the “great waite debate” instead of giving the honour to his party leader????

In 1997 the Dems got 16.67% in the LC, in 2002 they got 7.34%. This election they will probably get somewhere between 2-4%. In the 2004 federal election the SA Democrats got less than 2.5% of the vote.

Their leading (and so far unelected) candidate will need a lot of luck to push beyond the greens and get elected to the 11th spot on greens preferences. Unlikely.

Their campaign has been dismal, except for some interesting antics from their Norwood candidate.

In SA the Dems are not on the slide. They have been increasing their polling over the campaign, but a strong ALP is making it hard for all minor parties. The Dems have also had a good run of earned media coverage.

The only upper house poll conducted by the Advertiser has the Democrats on 5% along with the Greens 5% and Family First 3%.

In the Advertiser’s lower house polls (statewide) over the past few months the Greens have fallen from about 4.5% to 2%, whilst the Dems have risen from 2% to 3%, but the undecided votes are quite high for this stage of the campaign.

Things are definitely holding up for the Dems in SA, but we won’t see the final result until the count in the upper house is complete.