THE sight of Kevin Rudd being mobbed on the hustings in Geelong must send a chill down the Prime Minister’s spine.“Please come back. We would vote for you straight away,” a blonde woman told Rudd, whose response was a cheesy grin flashed straight at the cameras to check the moment had been captured.
In coded and not so coded fashion, Rudd is on the march.
While it sounds absurd, there is no guarantee he won’t lead Labor to the election.
That is not a media concoction.
Julia Gillard’s stricken face in parliament last week, as Rudd moved brazenly around her loyalists, spoke volumes.
She has come so close to completing a term in office.
She wants history to remember her as the “tough” first female prime minister who defied all odds to implement landmark policies on disability and education.
This, she hopes, will be her enduring legacy after people have forgotten those policies are mirages, and that everything her government has done has turned to dust.
The border-protection fiasco she set in train from opposition is her true legacy, with 40,000 asylum seekers on her watch.
Friday night saw another tragedy with a report of 60 asylum seekers drowned off Christmas Island, as people smugglers ramp up in anticipation of a Coalition victory.
But on this issue, as with everything else, she and Rudd are equally hopeless.
Rudd just thinks he’s a better salesman.
How would voters take his return?
Probably initially with satisfaction, as the rightful king is restored to the throne so unreasonably snatched from him.
They might be disappointed at being deprived of the kicking they had been looking forward to giving Gillard, but they would still enjoy Rudd’s revenge.
Then we’d remember what Rudd was like, and why his popularity had plunged to the point where his colleagues thought they could take him out.
He doesn’t like the media describing the last seven years as the Rudd-Gillard government, but the difference is little more than stylistic.
He has no answers, and co-owns most of the dud policies Gillard botched.
Sure he’ll save a few seats, but Labor will be back at square one with the whole stinking mess.
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