My article on the American election has been published in the January-February issue of Quadrant. It outlines the problems that Mitt Romney faced which are the problems all right-of-centre parties will now have to deal with. It’s long and really needs to be read in full to appreciate just how steep the mountain the Republicans faced actually was. That they lost was a great disappointment to me but it was not unforeseeable. The US is a different country now than it was in Reagan’s time. These, however, are my conclusions as they apply to our own next election this year, but I do encourage you to read the whole thing:

So here is the problem facing Tony Abbott as he tries, as did Mitt Romney, to put together a package of proposals that will deal with the actual problems Australia has. In running against a party of the Left, based on Obama’s re-election campaign these are the problems he will need to keep in mind.

They will use some of the most sophisticated analytical and statistical techniques available to uncover every grievance in every sub-constituency. They will then target these groups with promises to fix whatever problems they pick up.

They will run a precisely targeted campaign of fear based on the threat of losing programs or payments that benefit each of these sub-constituencies.

They will label the Coalition as representatives of a tired, old ideology based on principles no longer relevant in the twenty-first century. Misogyny, reproductive rights, religion, along with any number of issues that their analytics team has identified, will be driven whether or not there is any reality behind these fears. Labor being the party of the path of least resistance is almost never under such threats.

They will promise what cannot be afforded and dare the Coalition not to match their supposed generosity. Criticisms about the affordability of such ideas—where’s the money coming from?—will work just as well for the ALP.

They will invent sources of revenue that will never in reality cover the cost of their programs but which are sourced well beyond their own target constituency.

They not only will have but will expect to have, and will be entirely dependent on, virtually the whole of the media being in their corner at every stage of the way who will cover for Labor to the fullest extent they can while ratcheting up the decibel count on any issue that might harm the Coalition.

Romney was as clear-eyed as I could have hoped given the media problems he faced along with the straight out deceit that was integral to the Democrat campaign. Promise them anything they say they want is a strategy that will only work if the media never attempts to expose your lies. And since the media no longer does, at least for Democrats or the ALP, there is no reason to assume it won’t work again when our own election is finally called.