During the election campaign, the usual suspects in the treeware press were regaling us with tales of how interest rates could be the messianic issue that saved the Coalition from an old fashioned electoral reaming. Just how the mechanics of this was supposed to actually work in the real world was never really explained in any depth, which was probably lucky for all concerned when you think about it.

Here at Crikey, with our far more sophisticated readership altogether, we exposed this sort of baseless wishful thinking for the horsefluff it actually was — simply by using the data and a couple of spiffy graphs.

After Rudd pulled a clean sweep in last Tuesday’s Newspoll on which leader was more experienced, caring, in touch, trustworthy, understanding, decisive, likeable and less arrogant — let alone his clean sweep over the hapless Nightwatchman on who is more capable of handling every major issue; with all these honeymoons, Rudd is quickly becoming the Casanova of issue polygamists everywhere.

Yet the most distressing thing for the Opposition would have to be how the continuing love affair between the ALP vote and interest rates has not changed a jot.

While Rudd’s broader honeymoon with everything that moves is probably the more likely explanation for what’s going on here, the possibility that it wasn’t the Opposition vote that generically benefits from increasing interest rate levels, but that the relationship is actually one of specific benefit to the ALP vote, must give the Opposition a slight bout of political indigestion.