When the fork in the road leads you to the first bridge to cross, roll up its sleeves and put its money where its mouth is before getting back on track as a rock solid supporter going through it with a fine tooth comb.

That collection of Ruddisms, taken from recent statements by Mr Popularity himself, led me to the intriguing American Political Cliché site to see how well our man stands up to international competition.

The section there on clichés for scandals suggests that Mr Rudd has a long way to go before reaching the political pinnacle. I did not find in his utterings, for example, such classics as: “The true test of character is how you handle adversity.”

He has, of course, given us his own variations on “There was a lapse in judgement” and “There was an error in judgement” which are well up the American list.

But surely our Sunday political talk show participants can do better than “He’s going to throw his hat into the ring” and “We have a changing political landscape” or “He’s fighting for his political life”.

What we need is a little help from our esteemed readers to build up our own Crikey version of great Australian political clichés.

So listen out during the nightly news and send contributions to boss@crikey.com.au