Naked Australian politics

As Australia heats up for a federal election is a few months, the Opposition Leader and head of the Labor Party, Kevin Rudd, has accused someone in the government of leaking to the media that he attended a strip club in New York some four years ago.

Has the revelation of Rudd's drunken night out hurt him politically? Hardly. It seems Australia is still not a hotbed of puritans and wowsers. It might have even done him some good, as he had such a Pat Boone image before this non-scandal.

"KEVIN Rudd's drunken dalliance in a New York strip club appears to have endeared him to the Australian public with an extraordinary 85 per cent of voters suggesting the episode proved he was 'a normal bloke'.

"An exclusive Herald Sun-Galaxy poll over the weekend also showed one in three voters thought Mr Rudd was unlucky to get caught out.

"The response from voters was almost universal, with both male and female voters, and Coalition and Labor voters, broadly coming to the same conclusions.

"Significantly, Mr Rudd escaped any backlash from females, with 85 per cent saying it had no effect on their decision."
News.com