Magicians have two standard tricks (we’ll leave sawing women in half out of this, as Crikey respects people’s private lives): they pull rabbits out of hats and make things disappear — sometimes even themselves.

John Howard says he doesn’t have any rabbits to produce, so has the time come for him to disappear?

Both the quantitative and qualitative polling suggests that the government has serious problems, problems that have the Prime Minister as one of the major causes. He appears to have become the lightening rod for a whole range of perception issues across the broader community, not just in the marginals.

So, has the time come for him to do a vanishing act? Is that, after all the hospital funding and aboriginal interventions have run their course, his last available rabbit? Maybe. But government MPs should just keep two considerations in mind.

Firstly, the Prime Minister may only go when he considers the cause to be totally lost. If the party is gone, then he will be mindful of his legacy. A pre-poll departure might just salvage a small scrap of dignity. It would also square the ledger with his long-frustrated deputy.

Costello would become leader at last, but at a time when the government was utterly unelectable. His eagerly-sought prime ministership would be a poison chalice: the history books would record that he was the man who lost the 2007 poll.

And second, who’s ever heard anyone talk about “Peter Costello magic”?

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