Party Games: Why Malcolm Turnbull’s campaign approach may win him the race

WHILE many agree Bill Shorten might have won the daily horse race — and launched the better scare campaign — Malcolm Turnbull’s approach to the election campaign may very well see him come through in the end. Here’s why.

THIS election has been the hardest to read of all that most observers — both rookies and veterans — have seen.

A number of things have contributed to this, starting with the fact we started anticipating an election that might be held on the first Saturday in July way back in February.

By Easter we knew this was going to happen, after the May 10 Budget was brought forward a week. We would then embark on an extraordinarily long, eight-week campaign.

As has become the norm in modern era elections, the campaigns have been almost solely focused on the leaders — in effect presidential contests.

Our politicians believe this too — deposed Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd said his successor Julia Gillard had no legitimacy because he was the “people’s PM”.

Bill Shorten had been running hard since January and he did quite well during the official campaign period.

However, it’s hard to agree with the assessments that he’s won the campaign. Most generous counts agree he might have won the daily horse race — besting Malcolm Turnbull on the TV news — but Labor and its leader didn’t finish ahead in a strategic sense often enough.

Turnbull was not that much better but his steady and safe approach — which looked almost lethargic on TV at times — might end up fitting the zeitgeist of a resistance to any further disruption.

Labor had the better scare campaign with its hard assault on Medicare although there’s some question about how much rocket fuel was fed into it and whether it ended being overcooked.

This was neutralised by Labor also winning the number of unforced errors — especially when it really mattered in the final days.

Maybe the polls which say the outcome is a statistical dead heat are right (remember the surveys showing 50/50 have a margin of error of 3 per cent so anything from 47 to 53 per cent is possible).

On the street the most common observation from members of the public is that this is close — but is this just some kind of media feedback loop at work?

At the same time it’s almost impossible to find anyone who says there’s a mood for change and it’s quite likely there’s not.

Don’t miss Dennis Atkins and Malcolm Farr’s election podcast Two Grumpy Hacks, available for free on iTunes or Soundcloud.

Originally published as Party Games: Why Malcolm Turnbull’s campaign approach may win him the race