Meaty chunks of political news and commentary from former political operative and Canberra insider Richard Farmer.
Labor election campaign planners will be delighted with how the visit of Barack Obama has turned out.
One thing that most elected politicians really dislike is fair dinkum democracy. When they talk about "a conscience vote" they certainly do not mean that your opinion and mine should decide an issue.
Australians might be prudently paying down their credit cards a little (see yesterday's chunky bits) but they have not completely stopped spending.
Julia Gillard's approval rating as measured by AC Nielsen is up six percentage points in a month that saw her stride naturally onto a world stage.
As someone now at the age where senior's moments are not unknown I winced when watching those video clips of Texas Governor Rick Perry forgetting the name of the third government department he was promising to abolish if and when he became President of the United States.
The labour force figures out from the Australian Bureau of Statistics this morning at least tell us that things are not getting worse.
The Westpac/Melbourne Institute Index of Consumer Sentiment perhaps provides a clue as to why Labor has been improving its standings in the recent opinion polls.
I felt cheated this morning. No Dennis Shanahan explaining the mysteries of Newspoll's latest ups and down
A report to be released today by the Demos think tank draws attention to the growth on the continent of extremist right wing political groups.
It is not an easy time to be an economic forecaster with the outcome of the financial and political turmoil in Europe impossible to predict.
