A few of you have asked about polling comparisons between the early stages of the Latham and Abbott leaderships. While there’s certainly some similarities in the way that each leader had an impact on the polling metrics in their first few poll outings, there’s some considerable differences between the two when it comes to the size of each leaders satisfaction, dissatisfaction, preferred PM and two party preferred vote.
To start with, we’ll run through the two party preferred and preferred PM. Fortuitously, we can use the same bottom axis here as both Latham and Abbott gained the leadership in December – 2003 for Latham and 2009 for Abbott. To keep everything consistent, we’ll just use Newspoll data for the whole post (click to expand).
Both leaders increased the size of the two party preferred vote for the opposition, but Latham was coming off a much higher base level. Similarly, on the preferred PM metric both leaders increased their ratings, but Latham was always on a higher base and a higher level of uncommitteds than Tone.
If we move on to the satisfaction ratings, things start to get quite different.
What’s interesting here is the way the initial uncommitteds on Latham broke towards him with the satisfaction ratings, while the initial uncommitteds on Abbott broke against him – heading mostly into the dissatisfied column. We can see the stark differences in both the levels of satisfaction/dissatisfaction involved as well as the dynamic of the uncommitteds breaking, if we look at the net satisfaction comparison.
So while Abbott and Latham have some similarities in their early polling performance, Abbott was literally miles behind where Latham was at a comparable time.
40 Comments
I had forgotten how popular Latham was for a while there. Nice work Poss.
… and we all know what happened to Latham.
Interesting and thought-provoking analysis yet again, Poss.
Christ Tone’s lucky only people like us watch the 7.30 report, that was a shocker last night. I don’t get free to air so can anybody tell me how the FTA news played out for T?
I watched Tony on line this morning. It was not a bravura performance.
Who would Abbott be best compared to then?
You can check for yourself Cuppa:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2009/02/16/historical-satisfaction-ratings-of-opposition-leaders/
So many charts on that page Poss I’ve gone cross-eyed trying to superimpose them in a stack for comparison. Can I put the question this way: Who of past Opposition Leaders (if any) has the closest parallels to Abbott in terms of:
a) Taking over as Oppo Leader around 12 months out from an election
b) Their satisfaction/dissatisfaction (and/or PPM) metrics in the first, say two months
c) And movement of respective two-party preferred votes over the same period
I’m not even sure the data exists to answer this, but if anyone would know it’s you!
(Sorry if it’s a query based on ignorance, but you know me …
Thanks for putting that together Poss.
As you say Lathams party was electorally competitive and he was personally more popular than Abbot. That dissipated by election time, but I do remember it being considered that Latham had the momentum and could well have beaten Howard.
What I find interesting is that the dissatisfaction with Abbot is rising as people get to know him, despite Rudds personal rating and satisfaction softening over time.
are there any figures to support the idea that Abbot only appeals to the LNP base, where as Latham – particularly before the election; broadened the base and captured the middle ground.
I am thinking of figures on LNP support on the 65+ groups or rural areas before and after Abbot.
IMHO budgie bollocks is yet another man of the past, yet another of John Howard’s men and women from the Oz of the 1950′s. Another of the born to rule mob, with a twist. He takes his orders from God, via the pope of course.
I don’t know where I heard this but someone has said that the Libs have someone lined up who they really wish to lead the party and that TAbbott will be given the flick before the election.
Can anyone verify this story? If so, can anyone think who the luckless receipient might be?
This whole topic sounds like one of those “what’s the difference between” jokes.
Well, what about: Latham was a loony but it took some time for people to find this out whereas everyone already knows Abbott is one.
OK, not very snappy, but the truth.
The Mad Abbott, Calyptorhynchus?
It looks from Poss’s historical satisfaction ratings that Abbott will most likely reflect Crean. Crean started out similarly in barely positive territory.
@ calyptorhynchus
Didn’t stuff like “a congo line of suckholes” etc about due deference to the Office of POTUS give a hint to the MSM congoline?
People with their head screwed on knew of Latham’s mental fragility long before the penny dropped with Australia’a leftwing MSM.
The sad thing was that Latham is a very intelligent man but he was an unstable one very evidently and very evidently for a very long tome.
on that Latham was 100% correct – the libs ARE a conga line of suckholes.
Tony Abbott is Mark Latham lite.
Looks like Labor and Rudd will deserve a suitably similar descriptor of their behaviour towards another failed US President.
But Bush took 6 years: Obama only 1.
Now that’s slick.
Whaddya reckon Dave?
at least Obama actually WON his election
The Libs still beat ALP when it comes to sucking up to Yank Prezs – Holt/LBJ, Howard/Dubya
James – I hold the current ALP in only slightly less contempt than I do the Libs.. but I and others suffered 11 years of that snivelling, nasal deputy prefect, so it’s only fair you Liberalistas suffer Rudd for a similar length of time.
I think Obama’s main failing is timidity – he should have gone for the throat on the bankers, and forced his original health care plan through while he had the numbers.
Rudd has been like expecting a new XBox 360 for christmas and getting a handheld Tetris game instead.
JamesK
Why do you bother?
Actually Latham’s imprecatory ways were what gave some of the us the hope that here was a politician who could tell it like it i. It was his inept attempts to appeal to family values and all the other bs that convinced us that he was unhinged.
One of the best comments on modern politics is in the Latham diaries where he realises that it’s pointless hoping that at the certain point aspirationals will stop being aspirational and become progressive. Aspirationals will always want a bigger McMansion or another 4 wheel drive.
It was the beginning of the end when politicians starting bribing key demographics.
I think Abbott has the Left very worried indeed, if this is the best they can do to discredit him then they have some work to do. Wheeling out the worst labor leader in history as a comparison is desperate, very desperate and i think there might well be a few knees knocking in Canberra in 2010. ( Oh i should say Sydney because that’s where all Prime Ministers live these days)
Johnfromplanetearth,
The comparison has actually come from all sorts of places, including the Liberal Party backbench.
I don’t think much of it myself – each leader usually has their own unique set of political psychopathologies.
This doesn’t mean Abbott will bomb out like Latham did. He’d have to make some comparably stupid mistakes for that to happen.
Latham: “Howard is an arse-licker. He went over there, kissed some bums, and got patted on the head.”
or: “Bush himself is the most incompetent and dangerous president in living memory.”
I mean it’s true in spades for Rudd and Obama repectively as well but would Tone likely say so?
Contrary to calyptorhynchus’ belief it is the mark of a deeply unserious leader.
I mean I liked much of what Latham said policy wise but he was a lunatic. Tone is colourful but not in that lunacy league and Labor know it even if its drones want to believe otherwise.
The American public have moved on from a year ago but the Aussies for the most part don’t yet realise what a disasterous leader Obama is.
It’s obvious that JamesK and myself are at different ends of the political spectrum.
I’d agree with him on Rudd, but there can only be only be one “most incompetent and dangerous president” at a time and I think Obama has some way to go before claiming that prize.
Obama is making George W look very good indeed.
Scott41Brown certainly owes his election win and fame to Barry
JamesK – George W has the title in perpetuity, noone can ever hope to match the idiocy of Dubya, or the sheer incompetence and mismanagement of his (illegitimate) government.
W is in the same cesspool as Reagan and Nixon. W’s daddy by comparison was fairly good. Ford may have been a boob – but at least he didn’t screw things up in the short time he was there.
I let that pass as just wishful leftist imaginings Dave.
Reagan is easily and by a country mile the best US Pres since Truman.
I like Dubya. I think that he is considerably more decent and honourable than my very low opinion of him in 2000.
I suspect history, aided forcefully by Barry, will be considerably kinder to him than the intelligentsia’s view in Nov 2008.
What is so amazing is just how early and rapidly those views are changing.
What’s amazing is how Bush defenders are never specific about his supposed achievements. I mean, here’s JamesK boasting that history will view Bush kindly – you’d think he could at least have a stab at one credible reason why that might be.
I’ll offer one piece of evidence against posterity being kind to Bush (or Reagan):
http://zfacts.com/metaPage/lib/National-Debt-GDP.gif
And on topic:
I think Latham’s ultimate problem was that even some of the Labor base found his intemperate rhetoric scary. I think Abbott – with his proclamation that climate change is crap, or his image problem with women – probably scares some leaning Libs the same way. Abbott seems as incapable of wooing voters over from the other side as Latham was, and that’s pretty much a death sentence for an Opposition leader.
I’d put down Latham’s higher figures to the fact that Labor voters were, by and large, thankful to be rid of Beasley, but Liberal voters are probably less keen on having lost Turnbull, no matter what the party room thought of him.
JP went:
On topic? Down with your radical ideas!!
Poss, it was only an afterthought
To my mind, the Abbott-Latham comparison helps to obscure the big differences between them. Latham was a firebrand who came in arms swinging, so to speak. Lots of big ideas, some interesting, some obviously out there, and this determination to shake things up. Labor voters were after someone like that, because Beasley seemed determined to do as little to differentiate himself from Howard as possible.
Abbott’s actually a bit of a plodder. He’s perceived as ‘safer’ than Turnbull and a bit more dynamic than Nelson (though that’s no great achievement – I have a pot plant that would fit that description). But he’s mostly interested in being a reactionary – light on for policy, heavy on the scare tactics.
He’s probably a stayer, and he won’t disgrace himself electorally. But I think the Coalition are still looking for a saviour.
Obama didn’t fix Bush’s mess in one year and he’s a failure? Our American friends have no patience, and anyone suggesting Obama makes Bush look good doesn’t have much intelligence at their disposal.
It’s quite obvious that the best and perhaps only way to rehabilitate Bush is for Obama to fail, but only the most blindly blind of ideological imbeciles is not able to see the damage Bush did not only to the world but his own country, all people of reasonable intelligence from the left and right acknowledge what a disaster that administration was.
The Bush administration will not be looked kindly upon by history even if the wingnuts get their wish and Obama goes down in a flaming heap, the best thing that neocon sycophants can hope for is a competition with James Buchanan for the bottom spot on historical rankings of US presidents.
Brave effort by Aguirre but to no avail. Latham is now oficially boring.
Bush is hip
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1209/Bush_closes_the_gap.html
I used to read and file Latham’s media appearances (TV and radio) while voluntarily manning the local office pre election 2004. He handled himself really well in the interviews and made a lot of sense.
But he was bound to break down. He never really learnt the art of being a leader with responsibilities. He must have driven Faulkner mad at times.
Must admit the photo on the wall of the office (airbrushed as it was) looked terrific. Anyone not knowing him would have thought Latham looked a bit good and many came into the office to say so.
Another comment, one of the annoying things that occured with the spoils of the Howard $’s was that whilst the betting agency were happy to deduct the moneys straight from the old credit card account, I had to send a letter confirming who I was and stating the bank account I wanted the money depositied into, As I would never bet on anything else I found this pretty blatant delaying tactics, I presume not many punters take their winnings out,
Do other people have similar stories, or are some firms better than others.
Sorry wrong thread