Who won the news cycle? A fascinating campaign as Labor wins the day again

If you are a policy wonk you might be finding this election campaign boring but for those of us content to approach it as a sporting event we are finding it a fascinating contest. We are now half way through the race and both runners appear to still be in contention. Who could ask for more.

Not that the vast majority of Australians are yet keenly interested as this little survey of the most read stories on the internet websites of the two major newspaper groups that I captured last night shows:

Only on the site of The Australian did politics get a mention.

Such apparent disinterest is not really surprising because most people do not get around to really thinking about an election until polling day is almost upon them. That’s one reason I always approach opinion polls at this stage of a campaign with considerable scepticism. I’m not sure exactly what they measure but experience shows that their measurement of voting intentions this far out bare little relationship to the only vote that matters.

Not that we commentators worry too much about that when the pollsters help generate some excitement for us, although Julia Gillard on the back of the bus with the boys and girls of the press did that yesterday anyway. The Labor pictures were again all warm and cuddly and Tony Abbott showed us yet again the danger of politicians trying to make smart remarks. No. They hardly ever work. It is lucky for the Opposition Leader that the mob still are disinterested so little damage was done.