No planning equals no hope for Howard

I strongly suspect that the Liberals, despite what their boosters in some sections of the media might say, are heading for a rather nasty thrashing. The magnitude of the swing brewing against them comes from a conflagration of factors which a combination of hubris, vanity and groupthink have brought upon them.

The single biggest cause to the upcoming defeat is the abject failure of Howard to plan his leadership succession. I suspect that the failure to pension off Costello comes from Howard's personal view of the world not fitting best with modern circumstances. Howard relied on the Treasury to provide the stable runs on the board to build the government around. If he knew his history, he would have realised that Menzies sent two possible rivals to alternative employment and that Hawke appointed his former leadership rival Hayden Governor-General. All Howard's preferred choices, namely Abbott, Abbott and Abbott are so politically unpalatable as to make Costello look attractive. More modern leaders such as Costello, Nelson and Turnbull are a little too liberal for his liking.

Howard's almost feudal campaign style built a great level of personal loyalty to him, which is exemplified by the high satisfaction ratings. This might look great on paper, but it means that without a plan for the future, Howard will shortly be called into the nation's office and told 'thank you for your work but we'll have to let you go'.

Because Howard has hopelessly mishandled the succession issue, when the party sought salvation from the massacre during the APEC summitt, no options were available. No one was willing to stage a partyroom coup, because they believed Howard a political demi-god. Costello is so unpopular that he would make Crean look good without the assistance of a major policy makeover. Clearly he would need time and scope to redefine himself. Howard clearly believed the myth of his own invincibility and has treated this term like a true oriental despot. Hence his extraordinary imposition of Workchoices (turning up like an unannounced Fightback! package).

Howard's view of the world, particularly on the question of climate change, made him a ticking time bomb if the issue ever became a mainstream concern. Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth' made the issue mainstream. Howard either completely ignored or failed to see that Rudd would eventually become a formidable leadership contender. Once Rudd did become leader, Howard did not hone his economic message nor demonstrate even the hint of a plan for the future until it was far too late.

This acute failure of both historical perspective and knowing what your opponent is doing gives an idea of the historical magnitude of defeat. The average swing for a government to lose an election is 4.7%. However, most governments lose over two elections (e.g. 1969-1972, 1980-1983). Howard won in 1996 with a 5% swing, but this time round Rudd has to scale the swings created by Beazley's loss and Latham's loss. That's an extra 2% than Howard had to make up in 1996. Couple that with the distribution of Howard's vote across his seats and it means Rudd has to have a swing of at least 7% to equal Howard's 1996 result.

Which is precisely what the polls are showing.