So here’s the scenario. You’ve been the state opposition leader for the past three or so years. You’ve not been the all-time best opposition leader, a competent enough guy but it’s a hard time to be in opposition – things are going well with the world. So after three years of blood, sweat and tears, you accept your fate and regretfully resign. It’s a big press conference – cameras, journalists, TV crews.
Having just made one of the hardest and most humbling decisions of your life, you go home and have an early night: you decide to skip your regular viewing of the nightly news and head off to bed. You wake up the next morning and prepare for life as a state back-bencher and pick up the morning paper to find that the leading story for the morning is: “Kennett: The Second Coming?“. After three years in one of the most powerful positions in the State of Victoria and you are reduced to a by-line and a mention in the editorial.
I’ve never been a huge fan of Robert Doyle, (nor of Jeff Kennett really either) but I did have a twinge of sympathy for the bloke who has been relegated to an afterthought after trying his guts out for the past few years. People are far more interested in knowing whether or not a man who retired from politics two elections ago would run for his job. It would be really sad if it wasn’t quite so amusing.
(edit: my apologies to overseas and interstate readers who probably couldn’t care less. Don’t worry, chances are neither could most Victorians)