The frustration of watching an election campaign whilst recuperating

I thought recuperating after my combined gallbaldder/hernia operation would be enjoyable since the election campaign was on. I was SOOOO  WRONG.

Its Deja Vu all over again

Almost everybody got it wrong last election. This was possibly the easiest election to predict. From when the election was called until election night the polls did NOT move given the margin of error.
Only problem was no-one really looked at the polls. They were always wrong for some reason or other.

He is good in election campaigns

I simply knew people would say Morrison is impressive and Shorten is not. Let me give an example. A person is only a good campaigner if they increase their party's vote. Let us examine John Howard. The great campaigner par excellence. Hang on. From when the election was called and election night he only increased his party's vote in 2004 and possibly 2007 ( depending on which opinion poll you like).
If you want to say Morrison is a great campaigner, Bill Shorten is a poor campaigner or vica versa then provide the polling evidence.

Seat polling

The United Australia party got a lot of publicity through 4 seat polls. See HERE and HERE on why seat polls are crap.If you read any party is doing internal seat polling then you know it is complete and utter garbage. It costs way too much and is totally unreliable.See Peter Brent for a great conspiracy story about those 'polls'

Internal part polling

Pulease. Internal party polls which are different to public polls are NEVER to be trusted

Preference Deals

The was much hooha about the Liberal party and the United Australia party exchanging preferences.
First of all where are all the UA party's votes are coming from?  Most probably from the Liberals .This being the case unless all votes come back to them via preferences the Liberals will lose votes. Will the UA party have people on the ground to hand out leaflets in all the polling booths? I do not think so thus there will be some leakage of preferences.
Also If Palmer becomes a senator history shows he will not turn up so some sittings, quite a lot of sittings.

Betting

I am not a fan of betting markets 'predicting' elections. See Kevin Bonham. All of the above shows punters have no better information than anyone else.

The Polls

I cannot understand why seasoned journalists still say there is a tightening in the polls when they may change from say 52/48 to 51/49. I have just heard Fran Kelly say this. Dennis Shanahan is another culprit. Sometimes I feel I should do an Andrew Elder spray.

for the latest there is Galaxy and Newspoll

 Just remember a few things. There are both done by the same company at the same time. Also 52/48 and 51/49 are the same result given the margin of error.

The Debates

In almost any country political debates have no to little impact on the result. In Australia the Opposition Leader usually does well as he is now getting equal coverage. Also in most cases he attacks the government's record and presents a small target. This time it will be different. The ALP has a very large target. It won't matter.