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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/25/australian-elections-personalities
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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| Australian election: who cares if our candidates are 'nice'? | Australian election: who cares if our candidates are 'nice'? |
| (3 months later) | |
| Oh my, that Kevin Rudd. He’s a megalomaniacal, self-obsessed snake in the grass. Nothing like courageous, determined Julia Gillard, whose integrity contrasts with Tony Abbott, the misogynistic right-wing religious zealot. Or maybe Gillard is a cold-hearted, cynical automaton, and Rudd is a brave statesman – our best chance of beating Abbott, who is, to be fair, a man of strong moral fibre? | Oh my, that Kevin Rudd. He’s a megalomaniacal, self-obsessed snake in the grass. Nothing like courageous, determined Julia Gillard, whose integrity contrasts with Tony Abbott, the misogynistic right-wing religious zealot. Or maybe Gillard is a cold-hearted, cynical automaton, and Rudd is a brave statesman – our best chance of beating Abbott, who is, to be fair, a man of strong moral fibre? |
| There is much discussion in the public sphere, both among actual journalists and people who wish they were actual journalists, about what kind of person each of our political leaders is. But here’s the thing: I don’t care. And by “I don’t care”, I mean, “you shouldn’t care”. | There is much discussion in the public sphere, both among actual journalists and people who wish they were actual journalists, about what kind of person each of our political leaders is. But here’s the thing: I don’t care. And by “I don’t care”, I mean, “you shouldn’t care”. |
| Gillard may be the nicest woman in the world. There’s no doubt that she’s pretty tough. Admirable. Inspirational. Big whoop. But I’m an Australian voter, not Gillard’s life coach. She can be as tough as reinforced armadillo hide, it makes no difference to me. | Gillard may be the nicest woman in the world. There’s no doubt that she’s pretty tough. Admirable. Inspirational. Big whoop. But I’m an Australian voter, not Gillard’s life coach. She can be as tough as reinforced armadillo hide, it makes no difference to me. |
| Oh, I hear you say, but doesn’t personal character provide a guide to how someone will do their job? Yes, absolutely. But you know what provides an even better guide to how someone will do their job? How they do their job. To determine whether Gillard is a good prime minister, we should be weighing things like the achievement of Disability Care against things like her cynically brutal treatment of desperate asylum seekers; not how proud we are of her for taking crap from Alan Jones without crying. | Oh, I hear you say, but doesn’t personal character provide a guide to how someone will do their job? Yes, absolutely. But you know what provides an even better guide to how someone will do their job? How they do their job. To determine whether Gillard is a good prime minister, we should be weighing things like the achievement of Disability Care against things like her cynically brutal treatment of desperate asylum seekers; not how proud we are of her for taking crap from Alan Jones without crying. |
| Now of course, there’s no evidence to believe that either Rudd or Abbott would have better policies when it comes to asylum seekers – so absolutely, yeah, go Gillard. But please, cut out this warrior princess rubbish. If I wanted a Joss Whedon heroine as prime minister, I’d vote for Buffy. | Now of course, there’s no evidence to believe that either Rudd or Abbott would have better policies when it comes to asylum seekers – so absolutely, yeah, go Gillard. But please, cut out this warrior princess rubbish. If I wanted a Joss Whedon heroine as prime minister, I’d vote for Buffy. |
| Ah, but being better than Abbott is a big plus, I hear you say. Think of what he’ll do to women! He’ll ban abortions! No. He won’t. How do I know this? Because Abbott has devoted every ounce of energy he has to getting the Ring of Power. Do you think that once he has it, he’s going to deliberately jump into Mount Doom? The party wouldn’t let him, even if he tried to. Right now, he gets conservative brownie points for being personally anti-abortion, without the incendiary political blowback that comes with doing anything about it. Why would he want to change that? | Ah, but being better than Abbott is a big plus, I hear you say. Think of what he’ll do to women! He’ll ban abortions! No. He won’t. How do I know this? Because Abbott has devoted every ounce of energy he has to getting the Ring of Power. Do you think that once he has it, he’s going to deliberately jump into Mount Doom? The party wouldn’t let him, even if he tried to. Right now, he gets conservative brownie points for being personally anti-abortion, without the incendiary political blowback that comes with doing anything about it. Why would he want to change that? |
| He wouldn’t, and the only reason anyone thinks he would is that we have been fooled into thinking we should be judging politicians by “what they’re like”, instead of what they’ll do. As it is, what Abbott will probably do – come down hard on the unemployed and low-income workers, snuggle up cosily to mining barons and toss the environment in the bin – seems likely to slip past unnoticed by a country obsessing over what church he goes to. | He wouldn’t, and the only reason anyone thinks he would is that we have been fooled into thinking we should be judging politicians by “what they’re like”, instead of what they’ll do. As it is, what Abbott will probably do – come down hard on the unemployed and low-income workers, snuggle up cosily to mining barons and toss the environment in the bin – seems likely to slip past unnoticed by a country obsessing over what church he goes to. |
| Which is why so many people want Rudd back – but we can’t have that, can we? Rudd is autocratic, and is said to treat his staff horribly. But he wants to be my prime minister, not my BFF. Either you think he would be the best choice to lead the Labor party against the Coalition, or you don’t. Whether he’s a big meanie or not has nothing to do with you – nobody’s asking you to move in with him. | Which is why so many people want Rudd back – but we can’t have that, can we? Rudd is autocratic, and is said to treat his staff horribly. But he wants to be my prime minister, not my BFF. Either you think he would be the best choice to lead the Labor party against the Coalition, or you don’t. Whether he’s a big meanie or not has nothing to do with you – nobody’s asking you to move in with him. |
| Obsessing over the personalities of the people we vote for is dangerous. Ronald Reagan was a “nice guy” and he spent eight years helping his rich white friends hold the poor Americans' heads in the toilet. Voting on the basis of who “seems nice” is how we get George W Bush and John Howard. And this fixation on who is “a good person”, as opposed to who might be a “good prime minister” is going to burn the country much more than electing any one of the current three pretenders could: by giving all politicians a free pass to keep on pouring all their resources into getting on the cover of Women’s Weekly to tell us what great guys they are, and none on doing their damn jobs. | Obsessing over the personalities of the people we vote for is dangerous. Ronald Reagan was a “nice guy” and he spent eight years helping his rich white friends hold the poor Americans' heads in the toilet. Voting on the basis of who “seems nice” is how we get George W Bush and John Howard. And this fixation on who is “a good person”, as opposed to who might be a “good prime minister” is going to burn the country much more than electing any one of the current three pretenders could: by giving all politicians a free pass to keep on pouring all their resources into getting on the cover of Women’s Weekly to tell us what great guys they are, and none on doing their damn jobs. |
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