Talk about a phoney campaign! The meeja are almost giving the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition equal time, the Crikey/Media Monitors Top 20 for the week of 18-24 September shows.

But before we look at the detail, do you feel a certain emptiness in your life? Is something missing? Of course. Look at the charts. Vale Peter Beattie, media tart.

Filling the gap and racing up the charts this week is Labor education spokesman Stephen Smith, with his attack on university funding levels. Not so successful is Kevin Andrews, who falls six spots to Number 20 as his Claude Rains impersonation fails to impress the punters.

TW

Move

Type

Politician

Press

Radio

TV

Internet

Total

1

0

Federal

John Howard

1,622

9,864

4,710

8,890

25,086

2

1

Federal

Kevin Rudd

1,287

9,816

4,525

4,638

20,266

3

-1

Federal

Peter Costello

760

5,353

2,989

2,679

11,781

4

2

Federal

Alexander Downer

259

1,793

979

2,060

5,091

5

4

Federal

Julia Gillard

229

2,091

1,313

1,187

4,820

6

2

Federal

Tony Abbott

220

1,984

1,245

937

4,386

7

5

Federal

Peter McGauran

110

1,993

634

1,558

4,295

8

3

State

Morris Iemma

223

1,548

232

1,342

3,345

9

-2

Federal

Malcolm Turnbull

220

1,150

425

1,539

3,334

10

-6

State

Anna Bligh

245

1,143

463

1,227

3,078

11

2

State

John Brumby

250

1,232

362

849

2,693

12

3

Federal

Wayne Swan

124

1,061

337

285

1,807

13

-3

Federal

Joe Hockey

193

476

72

716

1,457

14

8

Federal

Mal Brough

142

783

151

371

1,447

15

6

Federal

Peter Garrett

94

427

72

599

1,192

16

24

Federal

Stephen Smith

117

636

178

100

1,031

17

-1

Federal

Jenny Macklin

76

331

518

106

1,031

18

7

State

Mike Rann

117

504

43

352

1,016

19

8

Federal

Julie Bishop

139

432

179

213

963

20

-6

Federal

Kevin Andrews

61

122

126

637

946

We’re told that some shadows are getting cocky and already recruiting ministerial staff. Perhaps they’ve seen that Kevin07 won this week’s talkback competition. They should take a reality check. He got the position off the back of his tax slip.

Rank

Politician

Talkback

1

Kevin Rudd

873

2

John Howard

406

3

Peter Costello

288

4

Tony Abbott

101

5

Malcolm Turnbull

92

And we all know that politics is show business for ugly people. Show business conducted at Spinal Tap volumes. For our check with the rest of the world, here’s how its practitioners measure up against mime artistes:

Marcel Marceau

27

442

675

155

1,299