It was my opinion before both Rudd and Obama were elected that they may live to regret the timing of their victories.
It was obvious to me that times would be bad for more that 4 years.
The chances of things improving within this time frame is remote.
While Obama cannot change the election timetable and will need at least some economic rally close to reelection time or a brilliant excuse for why he has failed to fix things, Rudd has more flexibility as we don't have fixed terms.
I will be very surprised if Rudd does not call an early election on some pretext. My guess is he will try for rally time but whether he has enough smarts around him to pick that is unlikely.
