Abbott could deny the Coalition victory

WITH less than two weeks remaining in the campaign, the danger looms large for the Coalition that Tony Abbott is the barrier to victory.

WITH less than two weeks remaining in the campaign, the danger looms large for the Coalition that Tony Abbott is the barrier to victory.

This seems unfair given that before he took over the Liberal leadership the conservatives were heading for a voter wipeout.

Labor ramped up its attack ads against Abbott last week, and the ads will increase in frequency and ferocity this week.

The polling numbers suggest the attacks are already cutting through. Abbott's net satisfaction rating in Newspoll has weakened from -2 to -8, whereas Julia Gillard's has remained steady at +2.

Despite a terrible end to the week for Labor, laced with the confusing spectre of Kevin Rudd being dragged off his sick bed to campaign in Queensland, and Mark Latham embarrassing himself and the Nine Network by accosting Gillard, Newspoll and Galaxy both have Labor marginally ahead of the Coalition on the two-party vote. Labor's primary vote is a problem, to be sure, but the likelihood is that Greens preferences will overwhelmingly flow the party's way.

The most important figure in yesterday's Newspoll was the decline in the Coalition primary vote from 44 to 42 per cent -- at that level the conservatives will not be able to form a government.

Abbott has run a deliberately small-target campaign. He is avoiding tough media interviews, limiting his interaction with journalists and scaling back his public engagements. He won't debate Gillard on the economy, and he won't set out a vision with a major reform agenda.

Abbott is hoping the government's incompetence over the past three years will be enough to deliver him government.

It is the strategy of the Coalition's faceless men (ironic, really), who have convinced the once-feisty Opposition Leader that his best electoral asset is Labor's woe, not his own worthiness to become prime minister.

It is an uninspiring message more likely to see him fall just short of forming a government rather than just over the line.

That is assuming Labor does not have a final two weeks like its last two. There is only so much chaos the public will tolerate.