It’s the environment, stupid

No matter how much The Australian may try to spin the palace coup against Kevin Rudd as arising from his mishandling of a proposed tax on mines, the big swing against Labor in the polls has consistently been towards the Greens.

I’m not sure in what universe The Australian lives, but in this one, people do not desert a ruling party for the Greens out of empathy with embattled miners, at risk of losing some of their massive profits to the public purse.

In 1992, Bill Clinton’s campaign strategist James Carville hung a sign in his campaign headquarters:

The economy, stupid

Given that Labor campaigned in the 2007 election on taking climate change seriously and has achieved almost nothing, with an emissions trading scheme proposal weaker than the Howard administration’s, that has gone on the back burner, maybe they need a reminder:

The environment, stupid