It would be a stretch to say that more than 1 out of 1000 US citizens know the name of the new Australian Prime Minister*. Candidates for the upcoming US primary elections, however, are covered by the Aussie press with Fleet Street ferocity.
Nevertheless, it was amazing to watch coverage of Republican candidate Mike Huckabee's farcical press conference on tonight's SBS News in which he implored several dozen reporters to "carefully" watch a brand new negative campaign ad. Why watch carefully? Because he'd changed his mind about airing it ("It's never too late to do the right thing," he said) and the media throng in attendance would be the only sentient beings to see it.
Yet there I sat, with Aradhna at my side in our apartment in Melbourne, watching snippets of that same super-secret ad on an Australian news broadcast.
Spectacularly shameless. Are Iowa caucus goers, the first US citizens to cast votes in what has swelled into a 2-year presidential slog, wise enough to understand they're being played for corn-fed chumps? We'll find out this week.
*It's Kevin Rudd.
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