If the trajectory of the polls keeps going like this, the Government’s two-party preferred vote will soon fall off the bottom of the political world as we know it (our thanks to the Ozpolitics blog for the graphics) ….

… and voter satisfaction with the Opposition Leader will project Kevin Rudd into outer space …

Despite the stage-managed every-second-Tuesday hype, today’s Newspoll merely reaffirms the trend lines consistently revealed in the other major tracking polls, Morgan and McNair.

Is it possible that this pattern represents some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy for the Howard government? Will the hyperbolic media coverage of the polls give voters a sense of “permission” to kick an incumbent government because that’s what so many other people are doing? Is this a case of the poll coverage creating poll sentiment?

Thanks to the polls, we know the answers. It’s the questions that are so exquisite.