Marvel at the world's most poorly executed election campaign!
The money quotes:
Latham quickly made it clear he did not feel it was necessary to listen to, let alone take the advice of, those in the party machine before determining his strategy. Unlike his opponent - Howard is famously almost as committed to the morning hook-up as he is to his morning walk - Latham saw little need to attend daily teleconferences with the rest of the campaign team. On the road, it would be left to John Faulkner or Stephen Smith to sit in on Labor's morning conference, then attempt to convey its key themes and recommendations to the leader.
"Faulkner and Smith deserve more medals than you could ever cast for them," says the HQ source. "They had to carry the day-to-day brunt of knocking on Mark's hotel door, explaining what we'd like him to do today, and then leaving with their tail between their legs."
and
Latham's public embrace of Gough Whitlam also raised the eyebrows of some colleagues. "It was idiotic," says one Labor MP. "Gough is an icon within the Labor Party but many other people remember [the Whitlam administration] as one of the worst governments in history - Gough is not a vote winner."
and
"It was a toxic workplace," says one staff member. "There was a swinging-dick group-think culture - it was a horrible atmosphere."
And on the trees...
...."From that moment there was this massive expectation that we'd do something," says a former staff member. "But the weird thing is, he wasn't even interested in forests. He came back from Tasmania and we said, 'What did you see?' And he said, deadpan: 'A tree."'
Says one Labor MP: "If there is an image which ruined any chance for us, it was that of Latham skulking into Tasmania and then skulking out to avoid the workers while embracing that madman Bob Brown."
Posted by Quentin George at November 27, 2004 07:24 AM