Opinion: Which party is ahead in this marathon election campaign?

AN eight-week election campaign is a long time without an end in sight but one party is plodding along with perfectly paced events and a better handle on distractions.

IF you think this election has gone on too long already you should seriously seek help. In reality, it hasn’t officially begun – this will happen on Monday when the writs are issued and all the things parties, candidates and officials can’t do are permitted.

The other thing to remember is no one actually votes for another month. The first pre-poll, absentee and postal votes will be cast a full month from this weekend.

Neither side has launched any real advertising and the policies are all lower order stuff.

COVERAGE: Follow the campaign trail here

This is what an eight-week campaign feels like: It is a very long time without a visible end in sight.

So we should all go to bed this weekend and remind ourselves that what we’ve just experienced is going to happen seven more times.

The best we can learn from this first week is to get a sense of the rhythm of things – the vibe we heard about in The Castle.

On this measure, Labor’s rhythm has been better than the Coalition’s. They have paced their events better and handled distractions more swiftly and effectively.

Also, Labor’s been streets ahead with the very important task of keeping the travelling media happy and pampered (seriously, this is a thing).

New South Wales Senator Sam Dastyari – an affable, wisecracking guy – has been on the media bus tending to the needs of the famously easy to please press pack. The Liberals, who have left their media pack to their own devices, could do with some catch-up on this front.

The Turnbull battle bus has had bumpier ride in week one. They have suffered from some sloppy advancing – which shouldn’t matter but does because of the length of the campaign – and there have been a couple of rookie errors such as letting it be known the very well-off leader did a fundraiser at an exclusive men only Melbourne club.

The Coalition’s campaign boss Tony Nutt and his Labor counterpart George Wright will be doing their post-mortems over the weekend – giving ticks for what went right and crosses for mistakes which shouldn’t be repeated.

Nutt’s error list will be longer than Wright’s, which is not a game winner or loser but will be something that will require attention. One of the very few benefits from an eight-week campaign is that you have more time to learn from and correct stuff-ups.

Dennis Atkins is The Courier-Mail’s national affairs editor

Originally published as Opinion: Which party is ahead in this marathon election campaign?