Politics is always going to feature heavily on the general section.....no avoiding that.
It will be very interesting to see if Howard actually does last until the election. There's no question that the polls will change, but notwithstanding another 9/11 or Tampa, Howard would appear to be in real trouble, and even another 'lifesaving' event such as those for Howard, would be viewed very cautiously and perhaps cynically by the electorate and would probably serve to assist Labour.
Costello would currently be thinking that it is unlikely that the polls are going to suddenly rebound too much in Howard's favour, and he will now wait until the election is uncomfortably close for the Coalition, but still far enough away to accommodate a leadership change. He will then challenge for the leadership. He will then be hoping that the 'honeymoon' effect will work in his favour.
This is all assuming that Howard's numbers don't improve, and that might be a big assumption. However, something tells me that this time the Australian public want to take the opportunity to ensure that Howard doesn't pollute their TV screens for the following few years.
Two of Howard's most opportunistic happenings in the lead up to the election would be a guilty verdict for David Hicks, which Howard will try to use to justify his disgraceful neglect of Hicks, and, any perceived or claimed improvement in the situation in Iraq, which Howard will try to use to justify the ridiculous decision to go there in the first place.
