The most pervasive and perhaps fatal perception in this election is that Tony Abbott is unelectable.
This entrenched idea is killing the Labor campaign; yet Labor has cultivated the notion and it has been an article of faith among progressive political and media elites in Australia for years.
This week's Newspoll testifies to the sheer dogmatism of this belief. Taken last week, the poll showed a 50-50 split (with the preference allocation pointing to an Abbott win) yet Labor voters are sure Abbott is unelectable. Among ALP voters 77 per cent think Julia Gillard will win and only 5 per cent think Abbott will win. In short, Labor voters think the election is a no contest. Somehow, some way, they are convinced Abbott has no hope when the exact same poll shows him winning!
By contrast Coalition voters are more realistic, being split 42-38 per cent in predicting an Abbott victory. And the nation overall is confident that Gillard will win 56-23 per cent.
This testifies to the Abbott phenomenon. He has got under Labor's radar and he keeps doing it. There is only one conclusion: Abbott is repeatedly under-estimated by his opponents.
On last weekend's two main polls, A C Nielsen and Newspoll, Abbott is heading Labor. Gillard has no illusions about the seriousness of the threat. Her correct diagnosis is that Abbott is getting away with a "protest vote" strategy and is not being assessed by voters as an alternative prime minister. Labor is now desperate to puncture the public complacency and disengagement that it believes assists Abbott.
Underestimating Abbott has deep roots in both the Labor and Liberal parties. It is a function of the hostility towards conservatism and Abbott's disarming unpretentiousness, his habit of parading his flaws along with his strengths, an unusual trait for an aspiring PM. Recall the universal sentiment when Abbott won by just one vote in the partyroom over Malcolm Turnbull and Joe Hockey last December. It was a surprise result. The Rudd government was delighted because, yes you've guessed, it knew Abbott was unelectable. Even the Liberals were worried.
At that time the Coalition was ready to declare Abbott a hero if he could reduce its margin of defeat to that of Kevin Rudd's 2007 victory. They would settle for a respectable loss. Nobody saw a Coalition victory as obtainable.
Above all, Abbott was assumed by the pro-Labor progressive culture to have far too much baggage. Even more than John Howard he divides the nation between its cultural opinion-making elites and its mainstream tradition of voting conservatism.
For years, Abbott has been mocked and demonised as a far Right, anti-woman, Catholic zealot, climate-change sceptic and political thug too reactionary for the Australian people. This narrative was supposed to prove, beyond doubt, his unelectability. This branding did Abbott much damage but it had a dividend; it stamped him as a conservative with convictions. In short, as a values politician. Many mainstream voters who elected Howard four times were drawn to Abbott as a values politician.
This narrative has produced three great consequences. First, despite all Labor's denials, it has embedded complacency in its mind and strategy. Liberal unelectability has been the story of repeated Labor success at state levels. The revolving Liberal leader's door merely confirmed this tactic could be repeated at the national level. Labor cannot recognise, let alone confront, its pivotal problem: the crisis in the Labor brand. This is an issue of substance. The public lost confidence in Rudd because of Labor spin and uncertainty about his substance, conviction and competence. The same malaise is now eating away at Gillard. Labor assumes the fresh Gillard personality can conceal the party's deeper problems, and the election may hinge on this gamble.
The hopes invested in the new Julia are near crippling. If Abbott wins, it will testify to the great Labor hubris in its belief that Abbott's unelectability gave Labor immunity for its lack of campaign substance and future policy agenda.
Second, the progressive hostility to Abbott's leadership transmitted from inner Sydney and Melbourne is mocked by the steady shift in Australia's population to the pro-development, more conservative states of Queensland and Western Australia. This is reinforced by criticism of Labor's brand in NSW ignited by state government ineptitude.
Last weekend's Newspoll shows Abbott beating Gillard in Queensland on the primary vote by a huge 48-36 per cent. This is a Labor debacle. On these figures Labor would lose a swag of seats in Queensland. The numbers, if not the seats, are duplicated in Western Australia. They mean the Gillard transition has failed in the big resource states and is faltering badly in NSW. It suggests the deeper problems that afflicted Rudd Labor also afflict Gillard Labor.
This testifies to a bigger and more complex country than the smug and narrow "Abbott is unelectable" mantra can comprehend. It contradicts the intellectual arrogance of the southern city Canberra-Sydney-Melbourne cultural elites that their ideas and prejudices control Australia's destiny. Any Abbott victory will shatter this assumption.
Gillard is alert to the conservative currents: she repeatedly rules out support for same sex marriage, talks tough on the asylum-seeker boats, backs resources development and on Monday delivered a hymm of praise to John Howard.
Finally, being cast as a values politician has purchased Abbott unjustified immunity from his chronic policy changes, reversals and backflips. No contemporary politician has changed his position so many times on so many issues as Abbott; witness Work Choices, parental leave, immigration, climate change and taxation. For years the progressive class was mug enough to paint him a conviction politician on values when it should have painted him a master of convenience on policy. This is the song Gillard now sings.
Abbott's policies demand more scrutiny. It is time for a leaders' debate on the economy. If Gillard is serious then Abbott cannot be allowed to say no. Indeed, he would invite ridicule. It would be a serious mistake for Abbott to succumb to the folly bred by so-called frontrunner status.
And that penetrates to another issue: will Abbott lose his nerve because he secretly shares the terror that he is unelectable?
