it's time to go...?

mood: a little tired.
state i'm in: haigh's chocolatey bliss.
tune: benjamin diamond 'little scare'... thanks karl! xo..


so the survivor lives on to tell another day. there has been much anticipation of the replacement as leader of the liberal party of john howard these last weeks, but the tension and turgidity seems to have resolved in mr howard's favour by the conclusion of the liberal party and coalition meetings this morning... for now, at least.


regardless of the outcome of the forthcoming federal election, mr howard will likely not be prime minister for very much longer. chances are he is facing defeat at the ballot box by year's end. this would pave the way for treasurer peter costello to become leader of the opposition post-election, but he would have a hard time generating any sort of positive results in opinion polls or a subsequent election. he is neither popular with his own party apparat or within the electorate. at some point the torch would have to be passed to another contender. if mr howard does win the next election, i still believe it would be unlikely that mr costello would ascend to the pinnacle of the nation's political landscape.

a shift in leadership now to mr costello would probably only worsen the election outcome, but would remove not one but two hurdles in the way of possible leadership contenders, and real prime ministerial potentials, alexander downer or malcolm turnbull, should he indeed be defeated. one of these two or another individual would be elected leader by the party and mr costello, with a forgotten mr howard, could be swept into the dustpan of liberal party leadership history. but do any of these party aspirationals have the gumption to come forward now and push the issue?

to elect someone other than mr costello as a leader at the moment would be nothing short of the execution for that individual's chances of ever leading the party and the country. therefore, it is a virtual impossibility that we will see such a thing occurring.


personally, i would rather mr howard stay on and face the ballot box, humiliated thence.

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image: public domain