Is the current Abbott slur fatal to his leadership

[Rorschach]

Since Abbott took over the Liberal leadership Labor have focused on attacking him and mostly it has been very very personal.
Now we have had an escalation of this personal attack tactic. Socialists are coming out of the woodwork with claims 30 years old about the behaviour of the young Tony Abbott.

Obviously rusted-on progressives will believe the attacks no matter what, but how are these attacks affecting the majority of voters. Will this tactic work and will it be fatal to Abbott's leadership.

[mantra]

Abbott's just getting some of his own back. He hasn't stopped slinging mud since the day Rudd became PM. He's become even worse since Gillard gave Rudd the shove.

If Labor stands a chance of getting back into government - they'll have to dig up some more dirt on Abbott. Politics is no longer about policies and what's best for the nation - it's about which party does the best hatchet job on its opponent, all funded mainly by the multinationals.

[skippy]

Why has phony tony gone to ground? He is in hiding since this story broke, what is he afraid of?
As for personal attacks, I'd have thought there were many more of these on Gillard rather than Abbott. The conga line have run so many stories trying to undermine her, and they all come back in their face. Last time I checked the accuser of Abbott is not a member and has never been a member of the Labor party, so how are Labor focusing on him?

[Rorschach]

Abbott's just getting some of his own back. He hasn't stopped slinging mud since the day Rudd became PM. He's become even worse since Gillard gave Rudd the shove.

You are kidding right?

If Labor stands a chance of getting back into government - they'll have to dig up some more dirt on Abbott. Politics is no longer about policies and what's best for the nation - it's about which party does the best hatchet job on its opponent, all funded mainly by the multinationals.

Well it's up to us to ensure it is about policies and what's best for the nation. Parties and Multinationals don't get to vote. Individuals do.

[Rorschach]

As for personal attacks, I'd have thought there were many more of these on Gillard rather than Abbott.

Come on Skippy the Labor Party are obsessed with Abbott. It is always about Abbott. Even Julia has concentrated on Abbott. They see Abbott as the key to winning. Remember the Abbott Abbott Abbott?

McTernan is behind all this negative ad hom and dirt file stuff. He's well known for it. That is precisely why Labor/Gillard hired him.

He is also on record praising the political role of "headkickers" and "intellectual thugs", while backing populist policies, scare campaigns and negative attacks, arguing that "fear beats hope".

"Around the world, campaign after campaign shows that fear beats hope. And why wouldn't it? After all, politics is a contact sport," he wrote in The Scotsman.

In the London Daily Telegraph in July he advised David Cameron that "all governments need head-kickers: in their cabinets, on their backbenches, and in their offices". In the same piece he said that governments hit by scandal must "get a grip" and adopt a policy of carefully limited honesty. "The key is to realise that you don't need to tell the whole truth, just nothing but the truth. Don't lie. Don't equivocate. But set out a defensible truth: one that you will not have to expand, modify or resile from."

It is a fair bet that he would like to see a punchy Gillard taking on Tony Abbott. McTernan was in parliament on the day Gillard called Abbott "a snivelling grub" and he called it "a towering performance".

And these are not the quotes from his opposition's side.

[Outlaw Yogi]

I gather they're rerunning Tony's drunken on stage grope of a female student in his uni days.

[Aussie]

"Tony Abbott is a man educated and mentored by older men; a man who has rarely worked outside institutions created and run by men," she writes. "He is a man . . . unable to comprehend what women -- who are 50 per cent of those Australians he wishes to govern -- need and expect from a modern leader . . . Abbott is not a bad man. Or a mad man. But he is, deep down, a very conservative Catholic man, a driven man, who believes that he has a political and religious mission -- a calling to lead this country -- that justifies everything he does or says. And that could be viewed as making him a dangerous man."

This was bound to happen.

[Neferti]

Have any of you actually MET Tony Abbott? Have any of you worked side by side with him when he is doing his charity work, life saving work and work with the Aboriginals? No. You just don't like the "look of him". Well, I don't like the "look of" Gillard or Swan. What have they ever done for the betterment of the community?

Tony Abbott is bound to get into Heaven (if you believe in that crap). He doesn't just attend Mass every Sunday, he actually DOES good deeds ALL the time and doesn't crow about them. I would think that Tony is one of the rare religious people that is actually trustworthy. Many aren't. I'd be proud to have Tony Abbott as our Prime Minister.

[Aussie]

Whatever floats your boat, mantra......but, he does nothing for me.

Weird.

[IQS-RLOW]

Quoting Susan Mitchell eh Aussie? Don't have your own view?

What a good little leftard you are