Last weeks nonsense in The Oz was interesting, as is the sudden media “realisation” of the state of the polls. Now these polls haven’t changed in 6 months, why suddenly have the usual suspects started pointing at the naked emperor, and why weren’t they for the last 12 polling cycles?

Last weeks fairly widespread blog assault on the reality of the polls and the fantasy world of some journos may well have thrown a big bucket of cold water over the collective orthodoxy of the Canberra press gallery. At least insofar as they might now be a little more wary of the ability of the hated “online commentariat” to make them look like dills in front of a large and growing audience when they carry on with pure piffle unsupported by observable reality. I’ve noticed Ace Stenographer has taken off his nylon cape and unitard to adopt a double breasted suit – his recent couple of columns were all very “just the facts ma’am”.

Thanks for the congrats, and congrats to you AB. Congrats to everyone , RTS, LP, Pollbludger, Ozpolitics, Mumble, Crikey, the many many other sites and the readers of those sites that reacted when the pollyweb collectively went “What a load of horseshit”.

Let us hope it is a sign of things to come.

Is it the effect of Workchoices? Its unlikely coalition voters are personally worse off but are they worried about its effect on their children?

The environment, particularly global warming? Has Howard’s global warming policy failed to convince co-altion voters?

Perhaps its Howard’s social conservatism. Howard has been able to grab Labor heartland votes by appealing to xenophobia and bashing sub-groups, but perhaps its coming back to bite him by putting off his own wealthier and more educated wet Liberals. We know that things like David Hicks were killing him with this group.

Has the Petro Georgio section of the electorate switched to Rudd? You don’t hear about them much in the commentary but they are a big enough group to explain these numbers.

The whole fiasco should be good for a further drop in the Conservative primary vote in Queensland.

Whether it adds to the sum total of knowledge is debatable.

The Lib supporters who follow the blogs are either disbelieving of the numbers, convinced that the community won’t let the PM down when it comes to the crunch on vote day or expect some policy or event to resonate so much with the electorate to act as a circuit breaker to turn the “ship” around.

Personally, I think the age of the PM, Work Choices and the rises in interest rates since the last election are driving the polls.

Can the Libs get out of this hole. Not without a change of leadership in the next few days!