Political parlance: Change that ain't revealin'

Being a politician is a difficult job. To be a successful one requires a myriad of skills based on the objective need to make tough decisions and the subjective need to satisfy a fickle electorate.

One thing it often, but not always, requires is originality. The problem is that it is exceedingly difficult to be original.

Politicians know this, and so they try their hardest to be so in various ways. Often, they hire pioneering thinkers to furnish them with original thoughts. They can then translate those into rhetoric and policy and satisfy the masses.

Barack Obama hired one of these people, 27-year-old Jon Favreau (he shares his name with another original thinker responsible for the cult movie 'Swingers') He was, in part, responsible for Obama's inspirational message of change.

It was a simple message that resonated with an American public that was, to a large extent, fed up with the simplistic and misguided policies and practices of George Bush's Republican administration.

But it was also a message that meant something more in its specific context. It meant a shift to the left. It meant a move away from what George Soros has called 'market fundamentalism' and a move away from black-and-white neo-conservatism.

It happened immediately after a global financial crisis and while America was mired in two conflicts in the Middle East. And it happened after Hurricane Katrina, which forced America's forgotten poor to centre stage.

Of course, it meant an awful lot more, in terms of race relations, social policy and so on. But in short, it signified a realignment of the American role in the world and the government's role in America.

But it was articulated with the simple word 'change'.

The election results of November 2008 show how successful the message was. It won Obama the presidency.

And so many other politicians around the world began to copy the message. Change, they said, was what they offered an electorate who they knew was fed up with the status quo.

It was a message the Conservatives used in the UK, David Cameron promising "a modern Conservative alternative that is about voting for hope, voting for optimism, voting for change".

And on Wednesday, Australia's new Prime Minister Julia Gillard, the victor of a party coup, was echoing the same, tired message. "I asked my colleagues to make a leadership change. A change because I believed that a good government was losing its way."

But this message of change, apart from lacking any originality and being shameless plagiarism, also lacks any equivalent cultural context. Gillard replaces her boss, who shared the same political stance and ideology.

David Cameron's chant of change also misread the national mood. It only garnered a partial victory and ironically forced an unwelcome change upon his party in the form of coalition government.

His was a plea for change in the opposite direction to Obama's, from left to right wing. It was a plea for change for change's sake. It was a call for a refreshing of personnel but not a re-evaluation of policy.

It was an intellectual dead-end. And it failed.

And so our global political dialogue has once again got stuck in a rut, a post-optimism, post-change rut. There is a dearth of politicians who have original ideas, or at least political aides with original ideas.

Once again, a vacuum of original political discourse, insight and policy is opening. It is one that demands a more concrete political philosophy, one that comes with policies and practical proposals.

Who will fill it?