What happened to the Liberal Party?

Originally posted by eagle888 ↑

I guess it began with Tony Abbott!

Undermined Malcolm Turnbull on climate change when Malcolm was
Opposition leader. Abbott challenged for the leadership and got there
with just one vote. He then made all sorts of promises including on trust
and won the election largely because of the leadership dysfunction by
Labor. After the election trust went out the door and promises were broken.

The Abbott/Liberal brand soon turned putrid and the polls went sour
and the already divided Liberal Party MPs were not happy with the way
Abbott was running the show.

They were facing a 2016 election without adequate funds to run an election
and it looked like they would be decimated at the election.

They then opted to replace Abbott with Malcolm Turnbull as Abbott was on
the nose and Turnbull had become very popular in the electorate.

The polls turned immediately in favour of a Turnbull Liberal govt. Then the
sniping began from the usual quarters. In any event Turnbull took the govt from
a sure loss situation to a narrow win which was also helped by himself personally
contributing nearly $2million to the campaign fund.

The sniping continued by coal loving conservative elements and the polls slumped
for the Coalition. The bright note though was the fact that during the whole time
Malcolm Turnbull was the preferred PM and preferred leader of the Liberals by
voters including Liberal voters.

In spite of the internal machinations by the conservatives which caused a policy
paralysis in the govt by about mid 2016 Malcolm Turnbull had pegged back the Labor
lead to a close 51/49 repeated in four consecutive Newspolls. Things were looking
promising.

THEN!

Incredibly news got out that a conspiracy was in play to oust the popular PM and
replace him with Peter Dutton. The polls crashed immediately. What followed
was tagged by Scott Morrison as a muppet show and ironically he, as PM
is now the chief muppet.

These muppets removed the person who gave them another three years in govt and
who contributed big money to the Liberal Party and just when there was a consolidated
significant improvement in the Coalitions prospects they axed him.

Malcolm Turnbull was with the people when he campaigned to allow same sex marriage.
Some of those who plotted his demise did they? How did Tony Abbott campaign? We know
his electorate of Warringah voted overwhelmingly in favour but not by the man who was
supposed to represent their views. Who else?

The conservative Liberals seized control of the govt by underhanded means, lost the safe
seat of Wentworth and in doing so lost their parliamentary majority. Popular Julie Bishop
has departed along with Kelly O’dwyer and Michael Keenan and Steve Ciobo and others.
Whats left! Not much, albeit some of those still there probably roll their eyes over
what the Liberal Party has done to itself.

A Party that has lost its mandate to govern!

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Eagle,
I think the problem started long ago when John Howard reneged on his deal with Peter Costello. Howard should have gracefully moved over.
I agree that the Libs are in great difficulty. They don't know if they are Arthur or Martha. Are they a posh labor party or a conservative party? At the moment they are trying to be both and being neither. The Libs have severly angered their core supporters by attacking retirees and destroying the power industry.

The ALP are managing to stradle the divide between the latte set of Melbourne Port and the miners of Collinsville with a powerful discipline that the Libs don't have.

Many ALP members and the ABC were great Turnbull supporters and Abbott haters, they were never going to vote for either.

Bacci