- Not an analysis by any means - more a campaign story, as Jensen reports on various events held during the campaign by both leaders, and what they were saying. (The back cover blurb is spot on).
- The quotes by attendees at the events are interesting. Mainly politicians and well-known observers and players (eg Bill Kelty, Arthur Sinodinos).
- This is a portrait of Shorten and Morrison as much as anything. Shorten comes off second best. He’s a boy obsessed by his mother. He's not a grown-up.
- I was expecting more interpretation, less plain and ordinary observation. There are few statistics or numbers or demographics. Little mention of the polls and how wrong they were or why. No mention of the state of the economy or the lies being constantly told by Morrison and Frydenberg. No views on why Australians across the country swallowed these lies holus-bolus. Very disappointing.
- The best part of this essay is the delicious descriptions of how players looked or appeared: For example, ‘Shorten squints....his eyelashes are uncommonly long. He has the large pleading eyes of a child left alone in his cot’; ‘Peter Barron....stands back on the grass like a driver at a mafia funeral...He walks from his shoulders down, the way a pendulum swings in a clock’; ‘[Bowen’s] face is a continuous line, as if the cartoonist hasn’t lifted his pen’. There are many others. This is the work of a gifted writer.
No comments:
Post a Comment