Reputation Management Online

It was only a year ago that Kevin Rudd was compared to Australia’s most popular leader Bob Hawke, but today he is coming to terms with the disreputable fact of being tagged “the most unsuccessful Prime Minister in Australian history”, the shortest serving one as well. And his once -  popular campaign slogan “Kevin 07″  is today subverted to “Kevin 07, Gone By 11.” So where had he gone wrong?

Right from angering MPs, an unravelling personal image, getting no support in opinion polls and a series of other events (which were definitely not favourable for him) that finally culminated in Kevin Rudd being dumped by the Labour party and forced to hand over his office to Julia Gillard (Australia’s first woman Prime Minister), the reputation of Kevin Rudd has been badly damaged for quite some time now. And the speed of his demise showed the extent to how bad it was!

People who felt fooled at the last election were desperately looking for a hero in Kevin Rudd. How far did he meet their expectations? Mistakes were many, right from ratifying Kyoto to apologising to the stolen generation and the people who elected him to power felt he forgot why they got him to power.

One can get a fair idea of how Kevin Rudd’s reputation got drowned in the sea of the very same people who elected him to power from their views . Most of the people in the streets are of the opinion that Rudd failed in implementing most of the economic policies he himself introduced. The muffed home insulation farce, the school halls building program and the $900 stimulus handout are just a few examples. Finally to top it off , Rudd attacked the mining industry, which is the backbone of the Australian economy. Well now, the reputation of a PM obviously depends a lot on how far you are able to carry out the new economic policies introduced and failing to meet it will have consequences similar to the one Kevin Rudd had to go through.

There are people who say that Rudd has not kept a single election promise since being put in the PMs office. Earlier this week the media were saying that he only won the election because of his wife’s media campaign to get him into power. And, to say you have not kept promises is pretty bad from the reputation management point of view for a PM.

Past experiences whether it was in the case of Gordon Brown or Kevin Rudd speaks out the fact that PMs and politicians will have to keep in mind  that people are empowered to throw anyone out of political office and hence they will have to above all maintain their reputation without any blemish at all.

As regards Kevin Rudd the only good news for him is that he does have a few people with him, who do believe that a PM being human can make mistakes or that Australia is not ready for a PM like Kevin Rudd.

But now with Kevin Rudd declaring (almost pledging) he will contest his seat of Griffith in Queensland at the next election, and http://www.google.com.au/ giving suggestions like “Kevin Rudd sorry” and “Kevin Rudd apology” for people typing his name at the same time, Kevin Rudd will have a hard job clawing back support and it necessarily does call for some serious reputation management too!