Thursday, 15th March, 2007 - Richard Farmer The battle of the keywords is now well under way as Labor and the Coalition struggle to damage their opposing leader. For Labor the recent task has been portraying John Howard as one of those clever politicians who are too tricky by half. For the Liberals the emphasis is on the words judgment and inexperience as they search to find a way of turning Labor's superman leader back into a mere political Clark Kent. Treasurer Peter Costello was at the forefront of the attack a month ago – Labor is drawing inspiration for its economic analysis from a Donald Duck magazine. This is the evolutionary cycle of the Labor Party. We have moved from Mark Latham's roosters to Kevin Rudd's ducks. Managing the Australian economy, which is a $1 trillion economy, takes experience and commitment and you do not get your analysis from Donald Duck comics. 11 February 2007. Prime Minister John Howard recently stepped up the description - It does demonstrate a very serious error of judgment, a lack of experience on Mr Rudd's part. 2 March 2007 Joe Hockey showed his ability to follow a party line on the same day as the PM - Kevin is challenging to be Prime Minister. We've got to test his judgment. I mean, we've got to test his experience. 2 March 2007 He's a new opposition leader, he's been in Parliament less time than me, you've got to work hard to be prime minister, it doesn't come to you easily, and judgment is a key part of it. 2 March 2007 Perhaps the real lack of experience was shown when the Opposition Leader was caught using one of the Liberal words about himself. Mr Rudd said he did nothing wrong apart from demonstrating "misplaced judgment". – report on 2 March 2007 Immigration Minister Julie Bishop had clearly read her briefing notes too. Laurie, this is where Mr Rudd is showing great inexperience, there are no grounds for an early election. 4 March 2007 As the Rudd meetings with Brian Burke received greater publicity so did the use of judgment and experience - What I'm wanting is for Mr Rudd to come clean. This is a very serious error of judgment, to behave in a way that you might be indebted to a person like Mr Burke... He has compounded that very big error of judgment by covering up the real circumstances of those meetings... And as each day goes by, he refuses to come clean about what actually did happen he only compounds the original error of judgment. – John Howard 5 March 2007 And the PM again - This is a very serious error of judgment, to behave in a way that you might be indebted to a person like Mr Burke - John Howard , 5 March 2007 Soon even the underlings were at it - It's about judgment and it's about experience, and both (Labor leader) Kevin Rudd and Kelvin Thomson have demonstrated that the Labor Party team doesn't have the judgment or the experience that's needed to run a $1 trillion economy like Australia. - Parliamentary Secretary Christopher Pyne - 9 March 2007 Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews sought to broaden the attack on Labor beyond just Mr Rudd. - What this shows once again is the inexperience of the Labor Party federally and the fact that they simply could not be trusted to govern Australia. - 11 March 2007 Even the Japanese press were introduced to the concept at a Prime Ministerial press conference in Tokyo. JOURNALIST: Do you think that Kelvin Thomson is a grubby sort of character? PRIME MINISTER: I think Kelvin Thomson showed very bad judgment.

Thursday, 15th March, 2007  - Richard Farmer 

Ask voters anywhere what they think about politicians slinging off at each other and the answer invariably is that they hate it and wish it didn't happen.

People always say their representatives should accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. And the politicians keep right on ignoring Johnny Mercer's lyric and continue to make disparaging remarks about each other which pollsters like ACNeilsen in today's Fairfax press find angers and annoys those they question.

How can this be? Why do political campaigns ignore such findings as four fifths of people not caring about the Brian Burke affair and carry on attacking?

For the very good reason that electoral history has shown the politicians that on election-day, negative campaigning regularly works. The very same people who tell the pollster they abhor person attacks end up being influenced by them

So with the headlines after a fortnight of Liberals accusing Kevin Rudd of dealing with a spiv for his own political advancement and the pollsters reporting Labor facing a Ruddslide, there will be no backing off. The probes in to the integrity of the Labor Leader will not just continue but intensify as really desperate men start to say and do really desperate things.

There is a risk in the strategy. In the United States where the art of negative campaigning was refined, the absence of compulsory voting means that making a person so sick of politics that they do not bother to vote can be as good as winning a vote. In Australia where over 90 percent of people vote rather than under 50 percent as in the US, a campaign that is too negative can rebound. The people revolted by negative tactics have the option of punishing the tacticians by voting for a third party or independents.

The way things are shaping up, the Greens can look forward to a record high vote.