I was just reading about how Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s plane broke down in Queensland, and several of his staff were stranded while the PM was transported on another plane, and it got me thinking about politics.

At the moment, Australia is divided between the Coalition (roughly comparable to the American Republican Party) and Labor (roughly comparable to the American Democratic Party), who won the 2008 election in a monster landslide. I watched the whole thing on TV, and it was like watching the most horrific MMA fight you can imagine, where instead of kicks and punches the damage was being done by ballots.

The 2008 election wasn’t about issues but about appearance, and Kevin Rudd couldn’t have lost. He was hip and young, and savagely popular with younger voters. In the debate, he repeatedly name-dropped Myspace and Youtube. Coalition leader John Howard looked old and out of touch. Add to this the fact that Howard planned to step down soon anyway (so voters would face a new, untested leader soon no matter who’s name was on the ballot) and it was a lost cause for Howard…you sort of wonder why he even bothered to show up.

I voted for Howard because, well, I liked the man. He got things done. Kevin Rudd specialises in paper politics. He’s good at smiling and waving at the camera, but isn’t an effective leader. He signed Kyoto, which is a meaningless gesture since he will be out of office long before any meaningful deadlines are underway. He apologised to the stolen generation, but doesn’t seem interested in making financial restitution. His promise to pull Australia out of the Iraq war was a bait and switch, as it only applies to a third of our soldiers and no-one knows when the rest will come home.

What’s John Howard doing now? Nobody knows. He’s vanished. Maybe we’ll get some memoirs or something out of him in the future, his legacy nearly demands it after all.