Interesting online discussion 12 hours after Strippergate hit the headlines. All the commentary I’ve seen so far has been from men who think Rudd has done nothing wrong. Of course they all would have done the same thing in the past (to an extent) although at least in my own credit I’ve never touched a stripper, after all who would want to be on the wrong side of a Kings Cross bouncer (for record the last time I was in a strip club was probably 19 or 20).
What the commentators are forgetting is the female vote. Women dont like strip clubs. Period, unless of course they are a stripper themselves, and even there you wouldn’t get a 100% favorable vote. Rudd will probably get a rise in the polls from men, but a big decline from women. Whether he has the viagra in his pocket to sway women voters again (as opposed to happy hands) will be seen in time.
Also some context as some have immediately compared Rudds lecherous hands to the shitfaced Glen Milne attacking Stephen Mayne last year: Milne wasn’t representing his country. Rudd was Opposition Spokesman for Foreign Affairs at the time (Shadow Foreign Minister) and was in New York representing Australian at the United Nations. If Rudd has done this at 18 instead of signing bible hymns and telling everyone how he’d be Prime Minister one day, we’d all accept it as a right of passage ritual (although again: I’ve never touched a stripper before, but maybe I was deprived). He did this as a grown man on the taxpayers pocket. We may laugh it of but it certainly brings into question his overall sense of judgement. I wonder if he’ll be inviting some world leaders down to the Cross during APEC? Maybe God told him to lay his healing hands on the strippers? 🙂 (another Christian hypocrite).
