Listening to Ted O’Brien go on and one about ‘Jess’ his Millennial catch all who he believes will win back young people to the Liberal party. This construct of a “Jess’ is not new – as Pamela Williams wrote in her book The Victory, Lynton Crosby first came up with ‘Phil and Jenny’ for the 1996 Howard election campaign. Every single policy had to be run through Phil and Jenny – you can read some of that below.
4 Comments
This tactic was also highlighted a couple of weeks ago in Victoria.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/nov/06/mary-joe-archetypal-undecided-voters-victoria?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
It is all so boring isn't it?
100%.
It also sadly reflects the lack of vision in the Liberal party that continually goes back to “tactics” from the Howard years.
As Greg Jericho highlights similarly referring to arbitrary fiscal guidelines that have no intellectual basis to them.
The bottom of the text extract suggests that at least the original "Phil & Jenny" were based on actual research. However, I suggest that, as with Chuck Schumer's "Joe and Eileen Bailey", that O'Brien's "Jess" is entirely made up.