I know – WTF?!?
Yet this would have to have crossed the minds of the mysterious forces pushing the Two Tonys leadership option – either that, or the Coalition have so lost the plot that they’ve decided elections no longer really matter.
We’ve banged on before about how the Coalition’s key electoral problem is with female voters. If we use the Newspoll quarterly aggregations to track primary votes of the majors by gender, it sort of speaks for itself.
The Coalition is pulling a fairly stable average of 37-39 among male voters, which isn’t crash hot, but it’s not exactly terrible either. The thing about election campaigns is that it’s pretty easy to win or lose a few points with any demographic, so if the Coalition went into the next campaign only 3 or 4 points down among males, it’s a doable proposition for them.
With the female vote however, they’re pulling an average 34-37, which is a staggering 7 to 10 point decline on their result from the last election. Turning around a gap that large simply isn’t a doable proposition over the short time frame of an election campaign. For the Coalition to not go backwards at the next election (let alone win), they have to substantially improve their female voter base before the next election campaign starts, simply to give them some realistic base to launch a final assault on Labor from during the campaign itself.
Which begs the question of the Two Tonys replacing Turnbull and Bishop – can anyone honestly say “Tony Abbott – Electoral Chick Magnet” without physically laughing?
Gillard and Roxon have a solid history of success when it comes to making life awkward miserable for Abbott – the ALP would use them as the first line of defence for their female vote share should the Two Tony’s option ever see the light of day.
For the Coalition to not go backwards at the next election, they need to improve their female vote – if anyone thinks Tony Abbott is the person for that job, they should ask a few members of the fairier sex for their opinion.
29 Comments
It’s the dumbo ears that make him irresistible.
He’s to women what Bronwyn Bishop is to men.
Ahhh, who’s the other Tony?
The Two Tonys are Tony Abbott with Tony Smith as his deputy.
How about reverse phycology select the Bishops instead
oops phycology = Psychology
Surely it should be “The Two-Tones” – or is it supposed to be a Two Ronnies reference?
Yes, an Abbott-Bishop ticket should lock up the Catholic vote. But Labor could hit back with Neil Pope and Albert Monk.
No you’re right. Spunky, awesome, cool, amazing don’t readily spring to mind with the words Tony Abbott. His public image was sealed at that Press Club run in with Roxon when he shook her hand and muttered ‘bullshit’ under his breath. If the Libs are flicking through their album of potential leadership persona’s Greg Hunt, Russell Broadbent and Michael Danby kind of fit electoral chick magnet criteria?
Unfair…
I’m sure he causes a few nuns to blush.
The Libs will indeed be reaching if they go for Michael Danby. He’s from the ALP.
heh!
I feel a real goose for including Danby. Huge apologies to him and you guys.
Of course there’s also an outside possibility of an Abbott & Costello team… they could do “who’s on first” in the house…
I’m sure Michael Danby would be willing to lead an all-party Government of National Salvation if asked.
Is there a gender breakdown on preferred Oppo leader lying around?
It might just have been that the ladies didn’t go on Nelson or Turnbull and that’s the reason for this demographic to have gone south since the election.
Abbott might be chick magnet after all. LOL.
Hope the Libs think so.
Is the first point the Election result or the Newspoll numbers at the time of the election? Is there any chance there is a systematic difference between Newspoll and the true overall vote (which is only ever measurable at elections).
Both the male and female graphs change a lot from the first to the second point. Obviously a change of goverment shakes things up, but if like is not compared to like at least some of this could be a small bias in Newspoll (not bias in the Pies Ackerman sense, just in the sense of a systematic difference between the subset of respondents NP are able to get answers from and the broader population).
No, you had it right the first time. LOL
Poss you are assuming the Libs will make rational decisions.
Malcolm as Mr -40 is terminal, anyone who has real leadership ambitions is going to wait until after the next election.
As the polls continue to stay similar to the last 2 years the marginal members will be looking for any straw to save them from drowning.
The Mad Monk sans People Skills will be a temporary messiah – and hair shirted scapegoat.
The weird ‘Engaging Women’ video which is prominent on the Liberals website at the moment shows that the know they have a serious problem. Making a video about in in which the sole bloke does almost all the talking while the women look on with fixed grins before Sophie Mirabella briefly talks isn’t part of the solution though.
Bogdanovist,
That first Newspoll result in the chart is the final Newspoll super sample before the election, and it’s pretty much the same as what the other phone pollsters achieved (apart from Nielsen, but that’s a long story)
It’s also pretty much the same as what the exit polls on election day (and the day after) measured as well. The difference between the pollsters is only 1 or 2 points so it’s all pretty much of a muchness – the likelihood of any structural bias to the figures is fairly remote as it would mean the other pollsters including the exit polls were out by the same margins. So we can’t take the figures to be gospel, but gospel +/- a point or two is extremely likely to be the actual case.
NickD – I love Bronnie Bishop in that video! I thought she was going to pull out a knife and stab Turnbull in the back at any moment!!
It’s so farcical you have to laugh.
Rua – you could well be right. Half the things the Libs have done over the last 18 months were silly without hindsight.
I said to someone else today that whoever it is advising Turnbull needs to start taking some zeitgeist pills, or otherwise there wont be a Turnbull left to advise.
It seems to be a problem ingrained to the Libs culture – a massive lack of awareness beyond their own limited circle (which they mistake as being quite a wide circle).
Their polling must be telling them this – I’m at a loss as to why they’re – pardon the French – fucking it up so often.
The trouble with the Libs., Poss., is they still, still, believe their own hype. Honest to the invisible friend, who could have thought of anything as stupid as the debt truck? At the very least, everyone who even notices, will be thinking, wot, they can’t think of anything new/else?
Dumb and dumber.
Poss – “a massive lack of awareness beyond their own limited circle” – I dunno. They had some pretty good years there for a while…
Gosh Damn it Poss!! I have emerged from my sick bed only to be confronted by you discussing such a horrific thought as Tony Abbott being leader of anything but his own cult!!! Erk! Must retreat to bed and pull covers over my head.
If People Skills ever becomes PM I am taking my ovaries and leaving the country.
Mrs Trubbell says Papal Skills Abbott is “Like a yellow tampon in a bag of Twisties – trying to pretend it belongs, but horribly out of place…”
especially a used yellow tampon like Abbott.
Abbott may be a decent human being but a potential leader Please NO!! I think he’d be disastrous. Probably make abortion illegal & euthanasia unconstitutional. Too conservative.
Cat – you’ll just lurv this then:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25767454-12377,00.html
I saw an equivalent piece in the Sun Herald and I confess I had visions that involved People Skills, the type of broom you clean concrete floors with and 500mls of turpentine. I note he believes that ” (marriage) is probably the most important commitment that any human being can make”. This would be because being he does not see parenthood as a choice and not so much a commitment as an unavoidable reality.
Three were three other opinion pieces mentioning the talk of him waiting to dethrone Truffles. It truly gives me nightmares to imagine he is considered a viable leadership contender by the Coalition. I started out as a manager in a customer service environment and I have younger female colleagues who do not believe me when I say I regularly had members of the public refusing to speak to me and demanding to speak to “the man in charge” only 15 years ago. I point to People Skills and tell them that is exactly the world he wants to return us to.