The Media Monitors' Top 20

This week’s Election edition shows that Our Kevin has managed to pip the US President-Elect, writes Patrick Baume.

As George W snickers over the rampant success of his deep cover plan to destroy US hegemony, this week’s Election edition shows that Our Kevin has managed to pip the US President-Elect thanks to good old radio, the beer and potatoes medium in an increasingly sauvignon blanc and sushi media world. The supposed liberal and international bias seems to be reflected in the volumes for the US candidates in Australia, if not by much. There’s nothing particularly special or unusual about Obama’s candidacy that would warrant that, is there?

Meanwhile, climate change is back on the radar for the first time in months, and the very, very serious Penny Wong pushed the line that we will make money out of the ETS, while also finally starting to talk tough to the states on water.

Chris Bowen was the other big mover, doing much of the media work surrounding the RBA rate cut decision, and also being forced to throw the first sod of dirt onto the coffin of his beloved FuelWatch.

TW	Move	Position	Politician	Press Index	Radio Index	TV Index	Internet Index	Raw total	INDEX
1	0	PM	Kevin Rudd	853	1,000	749	988	*24,395*	897
2	*	Democrat	Barack Obama	1,000	580	1,000	1,000	*23,375*	895
3	*	Republican	John McCain	767	268	670	979	*19,075*	671
4	0	Premier	Nathan Rees	304	558	129	620	*12,778*	403
5	-2	Opp Leader	Malcolm Turnbull	208	338	360	395	*9,517*	325
6	-4	Cabinet	Wayne Swan	224	324	263	402	*9,033*	303
7	-1	Premier	Anna Bligh	195	124	91	68	*2,396*	119
8	13	Cabinet	Penny Wong	67	170	104	54	*2,427*	99
9	-1	Premier	John Brumby	128	118	68	68	*2,163*	95
10	12	Outer	Chris Bowen	56	143	80	44	*1,992*	81
11	-4	Cabinet	Lindsay Tanner	46	135	30	95	*2,329*	77
12	-1	NSW Opp Ld	Barry O’Farrell	12	112	33	118	*2,462*	69
13	0	Cabinet	Nicola Roxon	69	88	28	75	*1,776*	65
14	-5	Cabinet	Peter Garrett	113	61	35	42	*1,258*	63
15	-3	Cabinet	Julia Gillard	93	45	11	79	*1,492*	57
16	-11	Shadow	Julie Bishop	47	78	33	68	*1,627*	57
17	1	Independent	Nick Xenophon	51	35	47	58	*1,299*	48
18	8	Premier	Mike Rann	54	77	22	21	*953*	44
19	-2	Shadow	Christopher Pyne	38	57	18	20	*775*	33
20	4	Shadow	Tony Abbott	21	50	8	37	*881*	29

Kevin Rudd and Nathan Rees remain the stars of talkback, as callers show little interest in the faraway election in a former superpower country.

Rank	Politician	Talkback
1	Kevin Rudd	383
2	Nathan Rees	163
3	Malcolm Turnbull	113
4	Barack Obama	109
5	John McCain	85

In perhaps the clearest sign of end of days that we’ve seen yet, the big early November clash that people have been waiting for all year — the Spring Carnival Marquee smackdown between Jennifer Hawkins and Megan Gale, seems to have been completely overshadowed by…well, how do we put this … actual news.