Who is Kevin Rudd and why is he so popular? Cerebral, strait-laced and ferociously driven, Mr Rudd is not the knockabout “larrikin” type that Middle Australia warms to or identifies with. But his very blandness is part of his appeal; Australians want a change, but are cautious about leaping into the unknown. Mr Rudd represents a fresh face and a “new generation” of leadership (he is 50; Mr Howard is 68), yet he projects himself as a safe pair of hands. — The Independent (UK)

Howard’s battlers desert the Coalition Penrith used to be one of Labor’s traditional heartlands until the prime minister John Howard and his rightwing Liberal-National Coalition party came along 11 years ago. He persuaded ordinary working men and women in modest circumstances, those who would never own stocks and shares or investment property, that they too could join in his great Australian dream of prosperity for all. Now they are feeling the pain. While middle- to upper-class Australians in the inner cities are at least able to service their mortgages and other personal debt, the spending power of working-class Australians has plummeted. — The Guardian (UK)  Rudd’s promise to withdraw from Iraq won’t affect US-Australian relations. Australian Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd has promised to pull combat troops out of Iraq and “to ensure that Australia once again has its own voice in the affairs of the world” — stances designed to set him apart from Howard who maintains a close friendship with President George W. Bush. But U.S. analysts say a Rudd victory, which would end 11 years of conservative rule, would probably not lead to a dramatic shift in an alliance forged in World War Two and formalized in a 1951 treaty. —  The Washington Post (US) A Tale of Two Launches. Mr Howard’s launch speech is fairly flat. He hammers the government’s two main themes: the “storm clouds” gathering on the economic horizon, and the risk of electing an inexperienced Mr Rudd to deal with them. Mr Howard shares the stage with Peter Costello, Australia’s treasurer, although he avoids any mention of his reluctant earlier pledge to hand over the leadership of the Liberal Party to this younger man if he wins. This just complicates the event: which one of them is the real leader? — The Economist (UK) ALP candidates questionable? In a last-ditch attempt to cling to power, John Howard’s government has claimed that 13 prospective Labor MPs should be barred from the contest because they resigned too late from their public service jobs when registering as candidates. Labor needs to win 16 seats from the government, so any legal challenge could overturn the result. The party labelled the claims as “baseless, desperate and ridiculous”. — The Telegraph (UK) 

Government to lose election and Howard to lose seat. Canny, articulate and not reliant on charisma, John Howard has been an indestructible force in Australian politics. As recently as 1989, his own party thought him unelectable and dumped him as leader. But since 1996, he’s won four elections for the Liberal-National Coalition, twice pulling it back from the brink of defeat. He’s left behind a trail of defeated Labor Party leaders, becoming in the process a hero of conservatives across the Western world. But just days out from the Nov. 24 election, it’s looking increasingly like the fellow right-winger whom President George W. Bush called his “Man of Steel” has, at the age of 68, taken on one locomotive too many. — Time (US)

Climate change a key election issue. John Howard has been prime minister of Australia for 11 years, and by normal political standards he has done almost everything right. The country is having an unprecedented economic boom thanks to China’s limitless demand for Australian natural resources. Unemployment is at a 33-year low, and Howard appeals to the underlying racism of many Australians by severely restricting asylum for refugees and subtly signalling that he will limit immigration from Asia. Yet he is probably going to lose the national election this Saturday. If so, the main reason will be global warming. — Salt Lake Tribune (US)

Economic boom has unintended consequences, one of which is to derail Liberal election hopes. When the closure of a KFC restaurant was splashed across the front page of the Mackay Mercury last month, it was not just a bit of parochial news in an Australian town. Instead, the woes of Colonel Sanders were symptomatic of one of the biggest problems faced by parts of the country – a less-welcome side effect of surging demandm especially from China, for the nation’s commodities: coal, copper and iron.when Australians go to the polls on Saturday for the federal election, the availability of chicken wings is not going to be prompting many to sway between the incumbent coalition, led by Prime Minister John Howard and his Labor opposition, the bookies’ clear favourite, led by Kevin Rudd. But in the crucial final days of campaigning the economy has been at the top of the agenda. — From BBC Online

Domestic issues dominate Australian election. US President George W. Bush’s last major ally from the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, is tipped to lose his job in elections on Saturday. Every opinion poll for months has suggested that the conservative leader will be ousted by the centre-left Labor Party’s Kevin Rudd, who has pledged to pull combat troops out of the war-torn country. But Australia’s involvement in the brutal conflict since the invasion on March 20, 2003 has played little role in the election campaign, being dubbed by one newspaper “the unmentioned elephant in the polling booth.” — Arab Times (Kuwait)

Howard won’t win on Saturday. Australia is likely to draw the curtain on 11 years of government by the center-right coalition of Prime Minister John Howard when general elections are held Saturday, polls indicate.It has been a hard-fought race. The dominant theme has been a battle between styles of leadership, although the parties have done their best to amplify relatively minor differences in policy. — International Herald Tribune