anti politics

I can see these parallels between Rudd and Obama:

• Cross cultural sensitivity, rather than real policies to achieve clear political goals (Rudd is multi-lingual and speaks Mandarin, Obama has mixed racial background)
• Sorry talk - sorry to indigenous people, sorry for destroying the environment (and for rising petrol prices even though that helps the environment), sorry for the Iraq war, sorry kids that you don't all have computer access, sorry for the economic downturn. Don't expect us to actually fix any of this, but sorry.
  
• End of unilateralism, replace it with global concerns and reaching out - if only we could all come together, end racism, join hands and save the planet (particularly noticeable in Obama's recent Berlin Wall speech)
  

At this stage the voters support Rudd's contribution to saving the planet through an emissions trading scheme: "... 77 per cent believe Australia should press ahead and cut its greenhouse gas emissions, regardless of what other countries do" (SMH)

The weakness of this sort of politics is that it is anti politics. It is hollow. Our political crisis is that the politicians are afraid to be political, to act decisively to change the world. It's too hard to change the world because not everybody agrees about what to do. But everyone can see that we are decent, caring people who are doing our best.

I like the Piping Shrike blog for it's analysis of the Australian political scene:
Flaws in the Machine
Rudd's Agenda
The Lurch