Lock up your babies and get ready to avoid MPs hovering around your local Gloria Jeans — the 2010 federal election campaign is go.

It’s a battle of the empty campaign slogans — Julia “Moving Forward” Gillard and Tony “Real Action” (or is that Direct?) Abbott for the grand prize of Australia’s top job as we head to the polls on August 21, giving politicians just under five weeks to convince voters to write a number one next to their name on the ballot paper.

Prime Minister Gillard, resplendent in a white power suit and fresh from tea and scones with Quentin at Yarralumla, stayed on message in her maiden campaign speech on Saturday: she was moving forward, with purpose.

“We’ll move forward together with a sustainable Australia, a stronger economy, budgets in surplus and world-class health and education services and other essential services that hard-working Australians and their families rely on” said Gillard.

Watch the speech here:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjGnHKe0v5s&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Crikey’s Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane was unimpressed. “Neither leader offered a compelling performance in their initial outings. [But] Julia Gillard did give a polished but content-free opening address, more of the same that we’ve had from her over the last three weeks, with added moving forward lots of it” wrote Bernard Keane on The Stump.

Tony Abbott looked a little less polished, shiny even, at his campaign launch in Brisbane, as he predicted a filthy campaign waged by Labor. “The Prime Minister wants to move forward because the recent past is so littered with her own failures,” announced Abbott.

Watch his full speech here:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqedLc_8Ylw[/youtube]

So far, the commentariat is underwhelmed.

“Australia faces an election contested not by two roaring lions but by a pair of political mice”, writes Peter Hartcher.

So far we know that Julia Gillard is Moving Forward and Abbott is taking Real and/or Direct Action. You can’t turn a TV on without being hit by the new ads.

ALP:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyR2pu_pY_I[/youtube]

Liberal Party:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qudBB6haJw[/youtube]

How do their snappy slogans stand up?

“As a sloganfest, this election sucks. Labor’s “moving forward together” is a slogan in search of a destination. The Liberals’ “direct action”, with its set of “stop the boats/pay off the debt” addendums, might be a bit better but it’s also quite vapid and suffers from a connection with 1970s Trotskyite red ragging newsletters,” writes Dennis Atkins in the Courier-Mail.

“If Julia Gillard’s ”moving forward’ and Tony Abbott’s ”real action’ catchphrases were pieces of art, they’d probably be hanging on the wall of a fast-food outlet. They’re that bad,” says Josh Gordon in The Sunday Age.

Moving forward means ignoring the recent past. “Labor is brazenly telling us to ignore its disasters of the past three years. The grim Liberals, though, want this election to be just a trial of the guilty,” says Andrew Bolt.

But there is some good amongst the bad. “‘Moving Forward’ has some benefit to it, since it neither moving right nor left and hints at a strong economy,” says Gordon.

It’s a slogan nicked from that other first female PM Margaret Thatcher. “‘Moving forward with Maggie’ was emblazoned on the British prime minister’s campaign bus as she successfully campaigned in what would be her last election,” notes Geoff Elliott.

It is a mixed message though. How can Gillard applaud her own achievements in the Rudd government — namely the economy and the My Schools website — when she is so busy trying to distance herself from it? asked Stephanie Peatling.

But on the other hand it works well at placing Julia Gillard in the future with Tony Abbott stuck in the past with his old friend John Howard, noted Paul Daley.

Michelle Grattan asks one of the most poignant questions of the day: “What would a Gillard Australia look like in three years?”

Laura Tingle sums [paywall] up the overall disillusionment among voters: “It is sad that a government that was so exceptionally ambitious for change — after 11 1/2 years in opposition — should now be going to the polls in 2010 sounding so apologetic about what it has achieved in its first term, even if it has reason to be apologetic for what it has not achieved.”

Tony’s slogan, which seems to be both “Real Action” and/or “Direct Action” isn’t a new one for Abbott, but, notes Josh Gordon, it helps to focus on the Liberal Party’s actions rather than Tony Abbott’s speaking gaffes.

And while Tony Abbott may laugh at Gillard’s ‘Moving Forward’, he’s busy convincing voters not to look back at Howard’s Work Choices, points out Michelle Grattan in The Age.

Expect the negative campaign ads to begin shortly, with “secret Labor Party research” already indicating that Gillard has three attack ads planned. “It is because each leader presents something of a blank canvas to the electorate and starts off the campaign dealing with a few negatives that the attack ad count over the next five weeks will probably go through the roof,” said Craig Johnstone from The Courier Mail.

The Greens also adopted the Moving Forward slogan with the “Your vote can move Australia forward” tagline on their new ads.

Meanwhile, there’s talk that the Greens and Labor have a preferences deal practically sewn up.

And the ghost of Rudd just won’t go away. “Labor is hoping a new leader has given the Government a new energy, a new direction and a newly cleaned slate. But the way the deed was done, swift and brutal, has left a lingering smell for some and cut into what the Government was hoping would be a honeymoon for the new PM,” writes Lyndal Curtis on The Drum.

Rudd has rolled back into town after his Washington jaunt.  “He had the look of a prime minister coming home,” said Dylan Welch. What a difference a month makes.

But others see Julia as the ALP’s knight in shining armour. “She goes into this election the clear favourite and there is a widespread, justified view that Gillard has dramatically re-energised Labor and lifted its electoral stocks enormously” writes Paul Daley.

As Denis Shanahan noted after today’s Newspoll, “The faceless Labor factional and union plotters who brutally removed Kevin Rudd to put Julia Gillard for the election can breathe easier. For the moment.”

“If Gillard wins, she will be judged an artisan of effective politics. If she loses, she will go down as a purveyor of rash opportunism. It’s in her hands now” warns political professor John Wanna in The Australian.

New voters have until 8pm tonight to enrol. This election is set to be one of the dirtiest in decades, so make sure you’re signed up for the ride.