It has emerged that Australian opposition leader and predicted next Prime Minister Kevin Rudd attended a strip club four years ago.

It's not clear which way this will go. On one hand, Rudd's big advantage over Howard is his perceived honesty and cleanness. If the Howard government (or, more precisely, sympathisers in the media and pressure groups, who can be kept at arm's length) can succeed in using this (and the juxtaposition between Rudd's straight-laced Christian public image and this incident) to damage this aura, then Rudd may become just another grubby politician, only without a track record. On the other hand, Australians do love a larrikin (see also: Bob Hawke), and this minor indiscretion may make him more appealing to some voters. (Not the wowsers, of course, though whether they were ever likely to leave the Howard camp is uncertain.)

Either way, let's hope that it puts paid to any Labor overtures to Family First.

Posted by: gjw | http://plastic.tumblr.com/ | Wed Aug 22 03:39:35 2007

Well, a spokesperson from a "Christian Lobby Group" that Rudd and Howard both addressed a few weeks ago has come out and said "We all make mistakes, and Christians forgive", so that appears to let him off the hook there. And the owner of the strip club in question says he recalls the night in question, and Rudd was the one saying "This won't do" and demanding they leave, after just 15 minutes in front of the exposed genitalia.

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