Rudd’s “promise to do better” media blitz

An all fronts media blitz from a deeply contrite and promising to do better PM pushes him back towards a bigger lead over the Opposition Leader in volume terms, with even Alan Jones getting a call, interesting to see if he gets another one after turning the offer down following a two and a half year wait.

Also highly amusing to see the conservative on the Insiders panel spending most of his time spruiking the Government’s achievements. A few of the usual suspects having trouble backing the fan of big government and opposing everything?

Greg Combet’s expanded role at the expense of Peter Garrett saw him shoot up the list, although he somehow remains a junior minister, while Christopher Pyne had to dig deep to find the “black armband” criticism for the new national curriculum. Penny Wong the only other major mover, finally splitting the Renewable Energy Certificate scheme to try and get it to work.

The media blitz certainly got a strong talkback response, almost all calls on commercial stations, running about 70-30 against the Prime Minister.

The ever more charming Mr Fevola reminds us of the Wilde quote about America, which at times like this seems all too apt for us as well — “the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilisation in between.”