So we’re off to the races on 28 August, according to the ABC, with the Prime Minister to intercept Quentin Bryce on the way out of Yarralumla for her trip to France to ask that Parliament be dissolved.

In 2007 John Howard had to wait for Michael Jeffrey to get back from church before popping out to do the formalities. But tomorrow’s effort should be nice and early as the Governor-General has a plane to catch.

A cynic might wonder if someone in the Government is keen for an election announcement to push this inconvenient argument over the events of 23 June out of the media cycle. Up in Queensland, where Tony Abbott’s offer to Michael Johnson to “fix” his legal problems is getting a good airing, the beleaguered LNP might take a similar view.

Nonetheless, the transformative power of the calling of an election should not be underestimated. For one thing, it will end Tony Abbott’s successful strategy of recent weeks of simply staying out of the public gaze and letting all the attention focus on Labor. It was a smart play while Kevin Rudd was struggling, and it was smart while Julia Gillard had her honeymoon.  In neither case was there anything to be gained from Abbott attracting attention to himself, particularly given his tendency to shoot himself in the foot.

That all stops the moment the campaign kicks off and he has to look like the alternative Prime Minister, with every single word, every um and ah, scrutinised by a media poised to scream “GAFFE!” at the slightest deviation from carefully-controlled talking points.

It will also usher in the battle of the advertising campaigns. The Liberals have been suggesting they’ll struggle to match Labor’s war chest on the TV front — Labor has already launched its first round of attack ads — but neither side is exactly flush with money, and the Coalition will have banked plenty of mining company largesse over the last two months, particularly in WA.

One aim will be to generate precious “momentum”, but over a six-week campaign there’ll be plenty of time for momentum to ebb and flow. Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan recovered admirably from Howard and Costello’s attempt to deliver a pre-emptive strike with the PEFO and tax cuts announcement back in 2007.

Also, keep an eye out for Andrew Robb through the campaign. He has been dominating the Opposition’s economic attack in recent days, almost completely overshadowing the notional shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, who at times appears to have dropped out of the media cycle while Robb muscled up to Labor. Campaigns are Robb’s home turf, and even though this will be his first one in a high-profile role, he brings enormous experience to the Liberal economic line-up, which otherwise would look laughably thin.

Then again, all this is just fevered media speculation. If there’s no Prime Ministerial limousine heading to Yarralumla tomorrow, as you were.