I'm still seeing similarities between Bush's win and Howard's win a month
before. Howard's win was put down to his promise/scare campaign to keep
interest rates lower than they would be under Labor, which won him the
outer-suburban new homeowner vote, while Labor campaigned on a bunch of
"values" issues, including betraying the timber workers union in Tasmania
(Labor being the traditional party of the workers and unions) which lost
the party two seats in that state alone, but did cement its hold of the
inner-cities. However, the "middle australia is stupid" meme didn't get
much play here, unlike in the US, which implies the US Dems are not going
to be electorally competetive for some time.