Key vs Rudd

In a break from the EFB (but will be talking later today some more on the new definitions of publish and advertise), I’ll turn to a good Colin James column:

He gives four reasons why John Key may not win despite the lead in the polls, noting that Kevin Rudd has much much more experience in politics and Government.

1. But” No 1: The state of the parties. A Martian visitor knowing the two main parties only by their annual conferences would have rated Labour well ahead. Labour’s was big, energetically explored issues and policies and sprouted young people and national diversity. National’s was tight, white and slight on debate.
2. Key’s knowledge base. Key was overseas from 1994 to 2001. That is a hole in his understanding of what went on here. Only six years in Parliament, he lacks the ingrained knowledge of issues which comes by osmosis with years in active party and parliamentary politics.
3. Grasp of government. Rudd was seven years boss of the Queensland Premier’s office and, by all accounts, a centralising, finger-in-every-pie one. He knows how a government works. Clark made Deputy Prime Minister 10 years before reaching the top. Key’s private sector governing experience is not training for governing a country, which is done with the media sniffing and hooting and the public primed to condemn.
4. Gravitas and the flash of steel. Key has an up-register voice which does not command. He has yet to show teeth in a dogfight. Clark is battle-scarred and battle-ready.

But he then also gives some “buts to the buts” as to why he still may.  These are:

1. Key has a disarming humour – a quality that escapes the public Clark
2. Key gets on with Tariana Turia
3. Highly sensitive antennae through which he also absorbs information and options from the wider world. Add that to instincts about what makes a cohesive society and you get a “one-of-us” leader.
4. He has cleared away counterproductive “extremist” (to use his word) differences with Labour
5. But Key is not “Labour-lite”. He projects a “philosophy” that emphasises the economic return from state interventions, including for the “underclass” and prisoners about both of whom you will hear more, and promotes a smaller state and a bigger private sector delivery role.
6. Key processes information quickly, reaches a decision, backs himself and acts
7. Key learns. He doesn’t make the same mistake twice.

I could quibble with parts, but overall a pretty fair analysis.