Draw the line

WE could, we suppose, get sentimental about the campaign that now lies in the past.

WE could, we suppose, get sentimental about the campaign that now lies in the past.

But bugger it, we'll kick off by expressing our joy that we won't see any campaign ads for a while. Yes, there were moments of cleverness (just don't press us for examples), but the bulk of them mugged us of IQ points. In what proved an alarmingly dense field, though, we must congratulate the ALP for the dumbest ad of the lot (not counting one of Family First's efforts, which brought us dangerously close to soiling ourself). Yes, it's "Tony the Dinosaur, by Harrie aged 11 years old", a series of kid's drawings turned into a cartoon, almost as if someone with an unnervingly literalist approach to life wanted to underscore the childishness of it all. The ad features a green dinosaur digging up a jar labelled Work Choices, only to get zapped by a forward-moving Julia Gillard fairy, where upon the Abbottosaur vanishes in a pink cloud marked "poof!". True story. If we may be so bold as to borrow from Stephen Fry, a short word about this ad: no. A long word about this ad: unconscionable.

Play it safe

IT was pleasing to see Tony Abbott killing, burying and cremating his supposed problem with female voters during this exchange on the wireless with Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O:

Sandilands: "Tony Abbott joins us live in the studio. He's had his police, well the police or some security came in."

O: "Your security."

Sandilands: "No one was going to kill you or anything like that. Obviously it's very important during this campaign time, that, you know."

O: "You're protected."

Abbott: "Well, I reckon, Jackie, that you know those security are to protect you from me, you see. It's a two-way street this protection thing, you know."

Pimp my chestnut

WHILE much fun was had with Tony "Nessun Dorma" Abbott and his 36-hour, shandy-powered, almost-entirely-kip-free marathon (which, sadly, didn't lead to him blowing a mental head gasket and promising Wilson Tuckey the foreign affairs portfolio), Strewth would like to salute one of the people who kept up with him: Giorgia Christmas. Christmas, one of Abbott's flacks, was cranking out press releases and transcripts for the Iron Monk through the night, having already been hammering away since noon on Thursday. Sailing effortlessly through midnight, Christmas kept hitting our inbox at alarming times: 1.43am, 1.56, 2.36, 4.37, 5.42, 7.56, and so on. By the time we caught up with her yesterday afternoon, she was still turning out releases like a conveyer belt, and communicating in full, coherent sentences; apart from that last bit, Christmas could almost be Kevin Rudd's model public servant. The only entertaining transcript glitch we found from the Monkathon wasn't from her hand, but it's a lovely thing nonetheless. Spot the typo in this magical snippet:

Mike Jeffreys: "So while you were there were you talking about that old girl, law and order?"

Abbott: "Yes, but I don't think that's a whorey old chestnut."

No sense in that

THAT, of course, was just one word being fumbled. Spot the conflicting messages in the following press release from the falling star of the unrepresentative swill chamber: "Family First leader senator Steve Fielding said it's important that people use their vote in the Senate to get some common sense and vision in Canberra. Senator Fielding said people should vote for Family First on the white ballot paper."

Dawn of the dread

AS we sit nervously waiting, what horror will emerge on the horizon tomorrow morning: the Work Choices ogre (undead and unburied, its ashes scraped out of the urn into which they'd been so prematurely stuffed, then reconstituted), or a million boats filled to the gunnels with asylum-seekers, who've just been waiting for confirmation of a Labor victory before powering up the two-stroke outboards. Speaking of those boats, one of Strewth's favourite moments of the campaign was chatting with a Dutch journalist who, having realised the actual numbers at stake, was utterly bemused by this campaign's preoccupation with asylum-seekers; it was like a Brit listening to an opal miner griping about rain in Coober Pedy. If she's reading, we can but point her to this hopefully illuminating quote from a Sydney rag, the name of which momentarily eludes us: " 'I f . . king hate boat people. F . . k them off," says Neil Frost, 28, a Liberal-voting tradesman from Penrith. 'They come over here and get everything for free.' " Still, every vote is equal, and that's something worth treasuring.

Vuvuzela time

WE'RE dismayed to hear the folks running the national tally-room are such killjoys, putting out an official reminder to anyone contemplating entering the hallowed space that an extremely dim view is taken of everything from rollerskates and pets to musical instruments and hooters. We only hope that whoever wins tonight dispenses with the false modesty and enters their party's election night venue to a rousing rendition of Handel's Hallelujah chorus. It's Strewth's one request.

[e-mail]