A Morgan-atic Marriage in Melbourne

Pollster Gary Morgan wants to be the next Lord Mayor of Melbourne. Good luck to him.

What has ruffled my feathers in this case is that Morgan is trying to make the jump from making a crust asking people what they would prefer to be the case - and making a comment about it to journos - to making a crust asking people what they would prefer to be the case - and making a comment about it to journos.

Seriously, (!) my beef is not with Gary Morgan. How could it be? I have never met him, so I can't attest to his credibility or lack thereof.

The bone I would like to be picked has almost been picked clean (thanks, Lindsay Tanner), but I shall do so regardless. This has to do with my desire to sharpen my metaphoric teeth as opposed to deriving protein-packed goodness (too far?).

The point is that the jobs of pollster and politician seem to be so similar. Hell, were they only monosyllabic words, no one could tell the difference. Okay, that's stretching it, but it seems to me that they are doing each other's jobs: pollsters are running the country* (by dictating the national conversation) and pollies seem to run to a focus group every time there arises an issue in which multiple perspectives are to be considered.

Should Mr Morgan be elected, how would he derive feedback from his policies? Would he use his experience (he has quite an impressive CV) in business or his experience in polling? One would hope that it is the former, considering the candidate has already been quoted as saying he is "more interested in business activities" than the current Lord Mayor - apparently Cr Doyle is "more interested in social activities". (The Age, 13/04/12).

The ironic thing - or not; I don't know, make up your mind - is that I wanted some polling numbers to add a bit of content to this point. Alas, it seems to be too early in the race for that old chestnut. I shall be watching Roy Morgan - the company Mr Morgan's dad founded in 1941 - with earnest.

*I realise the link is a little old but it serves the point adequately. You could argue, quite reasonably, that the 26th Prime Minister - Kevin Rudd - was deposed by his own party to make way for the 27th - Julia Gillard - because of poor polling numbers. It is one thing for leadership change to occur during Opposition - the party in minority wants the best possible chance to gain a majority at an election (and a large part of that is the reputation that the leader has. A poor leader will guide his or her party only through Opposition.) - but it was indicative of a party - still - under the wraps of polling. Yes, the Liberal/Country Party Coalition in the late 60s had a leadership crisis of their own while in power, but it was apparently caused by party distrust. The same occurred in 2010, obviously, but the distrust was not causa sui, as it was in the late 60s. I submit that in Labor's case, the distrust was directly influenced by bad polling numbers for K. Rudd. What is bad for the Labor Party is that Gillard's numbers as PM have been much worse on occasions, yet she hasn't been replaced. This doesn't make the Labor Party noble, or willing to stick it during the rough times. This makes the party look inconsistent. If there's one thing people hate with governments, or with authority in general, it's inconsistency. Given this context, I am not willing to predict a landslide at next year's scheduled election; stranger things have happened in politics.