John Howard conned by the media Martin Lehmann – 14 March 1999 John Howard is too weak to stand up to the media. Their anti-Hanson onslaught has reduced Howard to a quivering blob of media compliance. Howard’s weakness has allowed the media to hoodwink him into placing One Nation last on all Liberal how-to-vote cards. He has used considerable influence to get all Liberal branches to fall into line – often against their better judgement. Minor party preferences have played a significant role in Australian elections for decades. It greatly assists a major party to have a minor party with a philosophical alliance to capture the swinging voters and the protest votes and deliver them back via preferences. This has worked very well for the Labor Party in recent years. Preference votes of the Democrats and Greens have kept Labor in power even when their primary vote was less then…