The morning after

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Well, I got what I asked for. So why am I sad about it? 

Now that this tracking business is over I can finally reveal what you knew all along - I’m a KO7er, and proud.

Of course I kept that tightly under wraps on Saturday night, when I was covering the countdown from inside the cranky nest of Liberals at a swank hotel in Sydney. 

Snaking through the crowd with my digital recorder, I thought they’d know. They would smell a red in their bitter blue mist. Then they’d smash the bottles of red wine they were swilling and chase me out into the street shouting “Go for Growth. Don’t risk our economy with Laborrrrrr!” 

By the end of the night though, they would have had trouble ascertaining just whom I’d voted for. Watching Howard holding a teary Janette’s hand as he gave his concession speech, I felt…weird. 

It’s ironic that a week on the trail takes you beyond politics, instead of further into its heart. My intention to vote the Coalition out of government had not changed by Saturday, but my conception of its leader had. 

It is easy to demonise someone you have never met. I could comfortably condemn Howard when he was an abstraction on a television screen, the distant and impersonal incarnation of neo-liberal expediency itself. 

It became a lot harder on the trail. It may seem obvious that Howard is a human being, but that fact did not become real to me until this week. 

I’ve become a little attached to the old guy. Not just because he had a senior moment in a shopping centre and accidentally shook my hand. Not because he and Janette shouting all the journos a bar tab. Not because he makes Dad jokes. 

Rather it's because I can see he thinks he’s doing the right thing by everyone. I don’t believe that anyone goes into politics just bursting to do evil deeds. And so I can’t help feeling sympathetic when he was dealt such a devastating blow, partly by my own hand. 

I guess I just wish everyone could get a prize.