These days it's hard to see where the GOP is trying to do any good; it's all about thwarting the opponent's agenda, even if that agenda objectively makes sense.
Something similar is happening in Australian politics too, with the Liberal Party (conservative, right of centre) under Tony Abbott's leadership often opposing legislation purely to frustrate the governing Australian Labor Party. I'm not sure what their motive is, but I could pick one or more of (a) be able to go to the electorate at the next election and say the government didn't achieve much while in office, (b) psychologically wearing down the government in the hope they'll make a tactical error which will convince the cross-benchers to change their allegience and put the Liberals into power before the next election, or (c) punishing the ALP for outbidding them in the post-election negotiations which the ALP won.
Now from my time abroad in Europe, I take a measure of comfort in the predictability and "stability" of American government. Coalition politics are an order of magnitude more confusing and unproductive, in my opinion, than anything I've seen in the United States.
Coalitions aren't necessarily of themselves worse than one-party governments. The need to compromise on party agendas can often mean the more extreme policies of some parties get moderated. On the other hand, Israel is an example where minority religious parties seem to wield power well out of proportion to their numbers in the Knesset. And Germany of the 1920s and post-WW2 Italy are two more examples of the paralysis which can occur when no one party can dominate the political scene.
For what it's worth, I read somewhere that the political system in a country (or whatever) determines almost universally what sort of politics that country experiences. Single member electorates lead to two-party politics, while some form of proportional representation or multi-member electorates lead to multiple parties and coalition governments.
I've never been to Australia, but I've been very close to Cuba.
You know you'd be most welcome any time you wanted to visit Australia!
But as far as politics goes, readers may remember the commentary I wrote on the old board about our federal election in 2010. It resulted in neither major party achieving a majority, and the balance of power being held by Independents. After a few weeks of negotiations the ALP was able to form a government.
The price has been high, as Prime Minister Gillard was almost immediately forced by the Greens to agree to a price on carbon, something which she had very clearly ruled out a couple of days before the election. The result was that the ALP's support in polls absolutely collapsed. The ALP has also often been its own worst enemy, with erratic performances by ministers (the Indonesian Abbatoirs affair), highly irregular behaviour by a Government politician while he was a union official, naive negotiating (expecting that the Opposition would want to reach an agreement with the Government about refugee processing when a lack of agreement only hurt the Government), and barefaced politicking (nominating an unpopular Opposition politician as Speaker purely to gain another vote in the House, only to have his sordid behaviour lead to his resignation as Speaker).
Nevertheless, the Government has gained ground in polls in recent months, probably with people wondering whether the Liberals would be any better in government, and suspecting that Tony Abbott would be a less successful PM than Julia Gillard. This is partly fuelled by increasingly unpopular policies being implemented by conservative state governments.
The ugly side of politics has also stepped up in recent months, with a constant stream of highly sexualised or personal abuse of the PM. One of the more egregious examples came when a radio shock jock associated with the Liberal Party claimed (supposedly in rough jest) that the PM's father had died of shame because of her lies. I haven't been that impressed with Gillard as a Prime Minister; she was an excellent minister, and is apparently a very pleasant and intelligent person, but she has often failed to manage the political scene, presenting no coherent vision of what her Government stands for to voters, having an inane public speaking style, and seemingly unable to provide decisive leadership to the party. But the abuse she's been subjected to goes way beyond mere criticism of her performance and displays an ugly misogynist streak which Tony Abbott as Opposition Leader has cautiously exploited.
So while next year's federal election may have originally seemed like a walk-up start for Abbott and the conservative side of politics, things may be getting closer. This in turn suggests the Liberal Party may actually need to develop and release a few policies of their own, which should be a good thing for voters.
