The Outsider is casting a gimlet eye over the federal election campaign. Here are today’s observations.

Better late than never

The election has been called;  the race is on; all the candidates are in place.

Well, nearly all of the candidates.

Perhaps in an indication of the way it views its chances in the seat of Grey, on the day of the election announcement State Labor didn’t have a confirmed candidate in the geographically enormous country seat.

The seat was in Labor hands from 1969 to 1993. As recently as 2007 it was seriously in play for them. No more.

The candidate will be sorted out this afternoon.

Credit where credit’s due

It was only day two and already the pressure was getting to some on the campaign trail.

Yesterday’s big story in Adelaide was Holden (or Holdens if you prefer the Jay Weatherill term).

Industry Minister Kim Carr did the rounds of Adelaide media dodging questions from FIVEaa’s Keith Conlon and Jane Reilly before ringing in to ABC radio’s local breakfast show and telling Matthew Abraham to “calm down”.

Carr promised that State and Federal governments will now be buying only Aussie made cars (let’s hope he hasn’t passed that industrial logic onto US Police who import the Holden Caprice).

Carr was followed by Holden boss Mike Devereux, in town for talks with the local workforce, who was door-stopped by ABC TV which broadcast the interview live on News24.

In the interview, Devereux said Holden wouldn’t be making any billion dollar investment decisions until it’s sat down with whoever forms government after September 7.

This was dutifully filed by news wires agency AAP and carried shortly after by InDaily and later by The Advertiser which also subscribes to the agency.

The ‘Tiser tweeted a link to their yarn, which was re-tweeted by Abraham prompting the original ABC TV journo Nick Harmsen to get very testy.

Harmsen demanded attribution – a little “told ABC TV” added to the yarn, to indicate that at least someone asked a question.

The ‘Tiser said they got it off the wires – Harmsen said there was no wire reporter there – so the source was ABC TV’s broadcast; to which The Australian’s Michael Owen responded “are we that precious?!!”.

And it went on…and on…and on…

The question is: if a quote is dropped in the forest and there’s no print journo there … was it ever really said?

Three word slogans

The general schtick is that politics is at a new low, that we’re shallower than ever, that politicians are relying more and more on vapid, “three word slogans”.

But a look back into the not-so-recent political past shows that we really don’t have it so bad.

The 1990 election campaign – which very few people remember, it was that dire – displayed some of the most painful political ads in The Outsider’s memory.

They might not be as wading-pool shallow as modern campaigns, but they more than make up for that in sheer hokiness.

The Liberal Party’s 1990 campaign ads had a jingle – “There are questions that just have to be answered” – with the kicker, “the answer is Liberal”, complete with a giant Blue A (all set off by Andrew Peacock’s pursed-mouth delivery).

The Labor Party had a soppy tune strangely redolent of the old Home and Away theme song, backed by children’s choir, asking voters to “see the children looking to the future”. The imagery included Hazel Hawke hugging a baby and Bob Hawke crawling on hands and knees with some rug rats (I’m not sure that’s the future they had in mind).

The Australian Democrats, led at the time by South Australian Janine Haines, went with – a three word slogan: “Give a damn”.  They were basically begging Australians to engage with politics. It was the highlight.

Read yesterday’s take on federal campaign.