Election analysis or just plain rubbish?

I was (half-heartedly) getting ready to write a post in response to some of the nonsense that started to appear in the mainstream media yesterday and this morning about the election results in South Australia and Tasmania on Saturday. (This morning’s front-page of Murdoch’s Australian being a doosie!  Time and again we have seen that drawing federal implications from state election results is just plain rubbish).

However, this post by Larvatus Prodeo says it all really and saves me the trouble.  Cross-posted in full:

After the two weekend state elections, it’s likely that two Labor governments will be (re-)formed: a majority government in SA and a minority government in Tasmania with Greens support (unless the Greens flip to supporting the Libs).

Not that you’d know it from today’s headlines…

• ‘Rudd Faces Anti-Labor Headwinds’ – The Australian
• ‘Libs back from the dead’ – Glenn Milne in The Australian
• ‘Abbott says elections a warning for Rudd’ – ABC.net.au News
• ‘Liberals win the vote, lose the election’ – Adelaide Advertiser
• ‘Liberals hail the fabulous four’ – Adelaide Advertiser
• ‘Liberals ready to share power’ – The Australian

The only thing missing is for some muppet to point out just how strong and consistent the Liberal’s election results are across the nation – just look how often they come second!

For some meaningful analysis of the SA outcome and Labor's campaign strategy in particular, I recommend this post from Possum at Pollytics.com