A good bloke who deserves a crack: the Coalition re-election strategy
As the Sco-Mo Express putters up the Bruce Highway it is a neat symbol of the stand off between the mystical powers of marketing and the once iron laws of politics.
While the bus may appear to be nothing more than an empty vessel in search of a photo-op, it is part of a rising global tide where surface trumps substance and feelings beat facts.
Political science is an ancient discipline that traces its lineage to the teachings of Plato and Socrates, sage philosophers who attempted to construct a rational and ethical model for people to govern themselves. Their concept of a nation-state ruled by benevolent philosopher-kings who would represent the will of its citizens expressed through a vote became the cornerstone of western liberal democracies.
Marketing is more a vibe sort of thing, it’s forebears the hucksters who would fill a wagon with bottles of useless water and roll up to a town to convince the folks it would salve whatever malady was at hand. Having cut his professional teeth using models in bikinis to market Australia, Scott Morrison is the keeper of this flame, a modern day cowboy whose weapon is the sound bite.
For the past 50 years marketing has been the servant of politics, providing increasingly sophisticated techniques to help candidates connect with citizens in order understand their concerns and find ways of explaining policy to them.
But with the maturing of specialist political advertising, research, media management and public relations streams, the emphasis has shifted so that today politics serves marketing. The message has become the message.
Political science holds a government that defenestrates its leader for no apparent reason will not win the trust of the people that voted it in. The theory has been tested incessantly in recent years and refuses to yield.
The magic of marketing replies that putting someone in a cap and using the words “fair dinkum” a lot and downing-beer can counteract this, by proving the wearer is a good bloke who deserves a crack. This in essence, is the Coalition re-election strategy.
This week’s Essential Report shows that, while the tenets of political science may be hanging on, the magic of marketing is giving it a good shake.
Following the removal of an elected leader, the Coalition’s primary vote is in the gutter and the two-party preferred vote has stretched out to 46%-54%, a formula to an electoral wipe out. But despite these findings, Scott Morrison is maintaining his lead as preferred prime minister over opposition leader Bill Shorten.
When the political contest is reduced down to a battle between two personalities, the loud, brash one secures healthy support. While Morrison has proven effective at unifying an albeit dwindling base, the more understated Shorten continues to struggle to excite enthusiasm among his own voters.
On one level this is irrelevant, without the votes does it really matter whether the electoral loves you? The danger is that in a world defined by marketing, love becomes the defining issue.
It this logic that gives Morrison the incentive to get out on the road and spruik louder and longer, the art of noise reduced to simple grabs that may not withstand scrutiny but it does serve to make him, rather than his dysfunctional Coalition, the issue.
Morrison is something Morrison reckons he can work with. Unlike the pesky rules of politics there’s no need to think through social contracts or notions of legitimacy, all you need is something fresh to be outraged about and a desk to spread your legs across.
The triumph of marketing over politics is not confined to our national government. After a couple of weeks of ruthlessly executed image management, the younger son of the heir to the Australian throne has embedded himself in our national heart.
Prince Harry’s lap of the Antipodes with his Hollywood bride has secured him the sort of approval any democratically inclined philosopher-king could only dream of. Indeed, only Prince Charles excites the sort of regard we reserve for our own elected leaders.
The magic of marketing has now been so successful with the young royals, that it is actually undermining what political theorists would see as our natural desire for self-determination. In six short months, our support for a Republic has waned, while opposition has waxed.
When marketing rules politics ScoMo can be our leader and Prince Harry our putative Head of State. When marketing rules politics a reality TV star could even end up in the White House.
Indeed, the triumph of marketing over politics was foreseen by Plato who, as Olivia Goodhill noted in a recent Quartz article described the “democratic leader” as a man “false and braggart words and opinions” who was leader his society on an inevitable road to tyranny.
Maybe that’s the real destination of the Sco-Mo Express, when marketing meets politics anything is possible if you believe in it hard enough. Roll Up! Roll Up!