Labor strategists apparently want Kevin Rudd — failed leader; potential rat — back on the campaign trail. The vanquished prime minister’s journalist-of-choice Peter Hartcher writes today of the ALP’s “desperate plea”.

That’s how bad this election campaign has become. Even Rudd looks like a positively colourful intervention.

And then there’s Bob Hawke, on the hustings in red-blooded Lindsay yesterday, stealing all the thunder from Labor candidate David Bradbury. As Bernard Keane writes from Sydney today: “Perhaps it’s nostalgia for a simpler age, a time when politicians were real leaders.”

Certainly none of those in this campaign.

How did we get here? Gillard’s smart and sassy, as good a parliamentary speaker as any, presumably with more complexity to her belief in the ‘fair go’ than she’s letting on. Abbott is engaged and genuinely engaging — with a book-full of personal narrative and political belief. There’s enough different about Tony and Julia, and enough common ground, to inspire a worthy debate of ideas.

Yet Labor reaches for its yesterday’s heroes. And the Liberals talk about knife-crime.

Keane reports the good people of Penrith have tuned out — if in fact they were ever tuned in. Both sides have nobody to blame but themselves.