The winner writes History

Kevin Rudd had two persona's: Sunrise Kevin, and Angry Kevin.

For the majority of people he was Sunrise Kevin, that bright personality who was well spoken and an endearing leader who successfully unseated Australia's longest serving PM. But there was also Angry Kevin, the short tempered, very driven, dictatorial political machine that many behind the scenes said he was.

Kevin will be remembered as one or the other based on who win's the right to govern when all is said and done in this election. If the Labor party take power then Kevin will be remembered as Angry Kevin, if they fail he will be remembered as Sunrise Kevin. This kind of bipolar disorder is the personification of the current Labor Party, it is driven by the same weakness that brought Kevin 07 crashing down.

There are two groups of opinion emerging as the "reason" the Labor Party failed to win this election. The first state that dumping Rudd, going to the polls so quickly, and running what was essentially a Sydney-centric state campaign for a federal election cost the party more than anything else. On the other hand there are those that argue the party was going to lose and lose badly under Rudd and if the leaks had not occurred then Julia Gillard would have won outright.

The opinion that eventually wins out will be decided not by any great analysis on fact or the available evidence but rather on whether Labor can take power or not.

If Julia Gillard manages to lead a minority Government than the party will have no choice but to back the idea that Rudd would have lost in a landslide and the biggest single factor was the leaks. If she loses however, then the door is open to the idea that those running the party and calling the shots are out of touch with the electorate.

It was interesting to note during channel nine's broadcast of the election the number of times the Labor members of the panel (with the exception of Nicola Roxon) dropped Bill Shorten as the next Labor leader and pushed Rudd forward as a "failed experiment". This showed those running the party were very afraid that they would lose outright and be held to account by the party.

In the end it just exposes how disconnected the Labor Party machine is from it's constituents, hell even from it's grass roots members. The message on the weekend wasn't about who or what, but rather about how. People do not like the manner in which modern Labor works and they don't care if Rudd would have lost because they wanted to choose for themselves. Until Labor comes to terms with this problem it won't be able to fix it.

Perhaps then the best thing for the party would be to fail to form government and be forced to confront the burning question - what does the modern Labor party want power for, besides power for powers sake?