Ah, the cosmopolitan Crikey commentariat. Their chatter seems as relevant as Lenin’s grumbles from ninety-odd years ago when he greeted the downfall of the Fisher government with the complaint:

The Australian Labor Party does not even claim to be a Socialist Party. As a matter of fact it is a liberal-bourgeois party.

Take their talk on Dr Haneef. It may come as a surprise to those within the latte curtain, but very few marginal seat voters care about the technicalities of 457 visas.

The commuter freesheet MX is not a journal of record. It does, however, tap into a certain mood. And its “Dr Sues” headline on Monday no doubt reflects the views of many ordinary Australians on the Haneef case.

Some may give the bloke the benefit of the doubt, but also probably don’t want him to push his luck and go chasing compo. They don’t like him trying to turn a bob from his experiences by doing things like 60 Minutes.

Many of them believe his relatives are terrorists and will think that there’s something suspicious that he bought a one way ticket home.

The longer this runs, the longer this plays out, the more lawyers talk about suing the government — ie, taxpayers — and the more the issue will probably benefit the government. Their stuff ups will be forgotten as the focus remains on Haneef.

Meanwhile, John Howard is picking fights he is bound to lose with the states and taking bigger bites out of the fabric of federalism than he can chew.

The Commonwealth says it will bypass the Tasmanian government and directly fund the Mersey Hospital near Devonport. It doesn’t matter that they can’t get doctors in Hobart – even Indian ones.

Stand by for a chorus of demands from other regional communities — and the government backbench — for special treatment for their hospitals, too.

Meanwhile, his Education Minister is threatening funding to Queensland schools because the state has a system of continuous assessment, rather than public examinations at the end of Year 12.

Queensland, of course, is the state where Labor hopes to make some of its biggest gains. Smart work from a would-be member of the Liberal leadership team.

It’s very hard to disagree with the assessment of the situation Peter Brent is offering over at Mumble Elections today:

Upon taking the leadership last year, one of Kevin Rudd’s first utterances was to advocate reform of state-federal relations. It was a good idea politically, making virtue of an Achilles heel: wall to wall state Labor governments. Howard, on the other hand, has been following the advice of US political strategist Dick Morris and others that governments need to pick fights on the way to elections…

The trouble with this strategy is that, on the available evidence, the state Premiers are more popular than John Howard…Given this, you have to wonder whose side the voters will take in a conflict. Possibly the best Howard can hope for is to deplete the capital of both himself and his state counterparts. Which leaves Rudd unscathed.

The PM does best when getting tough with folks who are not popular in the first place. That’s his forte.

Human rights is a worthwhile cause, but marginal voters tend to care more about the state of their local roads and healthcare.

Rudd is saying he can work with the Labor states to deliver. John Howard is more interested in scoring points off them. But behind the latte curtain, well, they’re far too busy spotting wedges over their wheat germ to worry about the practicalities of winning elections.