Dave,

I don't think story-telling had much to do with the Aussie election result at all. From my perspective, it was more the realisation that a vote for Howard was in reality a vote for Costello - and traditional Liberal voters didn't see Costello running the country well. Personally, I wouldn't have voted for Costello if he had been running on his own. After all, he has been waiting for the past four or five years for Howard to 'hand over' the job, and (in my mind) the true reflection of his worth (or not) has been proven by his (Costello's) immediate resignation, instead of jumping in at the helm to take control and show leadership of the party.

My $0.02c
Steve

Hi David and Steve.

I have to agree with both of you. Shawn C from Anecdote also agreed with you on the 4th of November, where he said "I have been listening carefully to the politcians on both sides of the Australian political fence in the run up to our election day on the 24th of November. And surprisingly I can't remember a single anecdote or story from either of the leaders or or that matter from their team members" - see http://www.anecdote.com.au/archives/2007/11/hardly_a_story.html Hardly a story to be heard in the Australian political campaign. Its interesting how some of his collegues are blogging the opposite view now. Its easy to be wise after the event.

Regards, Graham

Could this possibly be related to the Forer effect?

Hi Dave: Spot on. Or maybe even too kind to the storytellers.

Let's imagine there was a surprise and Johnny Howard won again (thank god he didn't). It would be a work of moments to post-rationalise that as a triumph of storytelling in the same we folks did for Rudd. How he got their attention, created emotional impact blah blah blah.

Somehow - and I'm not sure I can articulate this very clearly - what happens is that the part of storytelling that feels important ends up trivialised by this kind of, er, storytelling.

If storytelling becomes just another consultant's trick, a top-tip-for-success, we lose the power that might come from wondering what story it is we are a part of, and what might we want to be a part of.

I'm struggling here, but I'd like the idea of being part of something emergent - not a stand up comedian waiting to deliver his punchline nor an passive audience member waiting for it.

quote: "You have a claim for a cause, if you predicted it BEFORE the election , not afterwards."
It's not strong enough. There are various magician's tricks, where multiple results for predictions are stored at multiple places and the "right" one is then disclosed selectively after knowing the fact.
Thus: "You have a claim for a cause, if you predicted ONLY THIS CLAIM, and no others, BEFORE the election, not afterwards."
At least professional magicians honestly confess that they are using tricks.

There is another interesting angle here and that is, I read at least one (possibly two) pieces in our local paper (the New Zealand Herald) suggesting that some of Rudd's success was down to the fact that he and his followers had set greater store by Facebook, as opposed to the Howard camp who mainly focused on MySpace. I wish I could find the story now - but one said something along the lines of "And perhaps the online battle was won by Rudd, because his supporters went with the newer and relatively more trendy technology... etc etc etc".

Yet another story - and after the event. But as one who has got into deep trouble in Sydney pubs with mates over the whole Howard regime [remember six years ago? - John Howard told a story about boat people throwing their children into the sea - the Tampa incident - and virtually won an election on a lie???] it is interesting how a lot of this year's Federal election campaign came down to a debate over story telling, rather than policy. Labor and the Lib coalition policies were/are not that far apart, and Rudd sounds plenty autocratic enough in a Johnny Howard kind of way, but the subtle differences in leadership persona, not actual practice, were what made the difference in the end.