If Jones were to take another 3 or 4 points off Newman, she would almost certainly win, even if the former Mayor tops the primaries narrowly. The Greens’ vote is likely to be polarised between the majors and at least half of it to favour Jones in preferences (taking into account the exhaustion rate under OPV).

Certainly, other developments suggest that there is a real contest for Ashgrove.

Yesterday, the entire LNP shadow cabinet doorknocked the electorate, and Newman has just made his first big pork-barrelling promise, extra rail services on the Ferny Grove line, an initiative immediately criticised by Anna Bligh and Kate Jones.

Earlier, Newman was endorsed in a letter signed by Federal MP Teresa Gambaro, and LNP Councillors Geraldine Knapp and Jane Prentice.

It seems incontestable that the LNP Leader’s negatives with women are on the rise.

Betting markets have also moved, with Kate Jones narrowing from 4.35 to 3.70 over the weekend.

Labor has started to play the “Vote for the LNP, wake up with Jeff Seeney” card, somewhat earlier than may have been anticipated.

The real question here is not whether Newman or Jones will ultimately prevail in Ashgrove, but the impact on the campaign as a whole of the perception that Newman has a real fight on his hands.

Elsewhere: Andrew Bartlett.

NB: All LP coverage of the Queensland election can be accessed here.

(Prefer to join a more focussed discussion? Try our recent roundtables for recent lively discussions or browse our archives for topics of interest)

Simon Crean’s intervention last week, and its perception by some as his own bid for the top job, accompanied by reports that the Independents had been canvassed about their intentions in the case of a Labor leadership change (confirmed by Rob Oakeshott), should demonstrate that, if the endless succession of quotes from “sources”, “MPs” and “Ministers” did not. Then there’s the Prime Minister’s own call for unity and for leaking and backgrounding to stop at a special caucus meeting on the weekend.

To my mind, Mungo MacCallum analyses all this noise best, when he remarks that politics has fallen captive to magical thinking:

At the moment the embattled members seem to be relying more on magic than politics: during Sunday’s marathon gathering, the name of Kevin Rudd was not mentioned. Apparently the idea was that if he was not invoked, perhaps he would disappear. Caucus tried exactly the same formula back in the 1950s, when the followers of the hapless and doomed Doc Evatt banned the name of the great enemy, Bartholomew Augustine Santamaria from the party room. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now.

Federal politics is an absolute train wreck at the moment, with neither party focusing on the issues that actually concern voters. The Labor Party is incapable of sustaining any sort of narrative about the country, as it appears (accurately) to be obsessed about its own internal dilemmas and polls.

It’s the press-gallery-isation of Labor.

And on the other side of the House:

And of course, there is always the hope of a miracle. After all, Tony Abbott is campaigning for government on the promise that he can conjure $40 billion out of thin air, and provide pie in the sky thereafter. It’s not only Labor that believes in magic.

And as if to cap off this risibility, Speaker Peter Slipper plans to get his wig and frock on to lend dignity to these tawdry proceedings.

(Prefer to join a more focussed discussion? Try our recent roundtables for recent lively discussions or browse our archives for topics of interest)

And I think that’s actually what is causing the LNP so much grief.

We’ve now been going for over a week in the faux campaign, the flood enquiry has recommenced, and floods have recommenced too, with Anna Bligh declaring parts of Western Queensland a disaster zone. (See Derek Barry for more on the flooding around Roma and Mitchell.) Deputy Premier Andrew Fraser is lobbing daily smokeballs (perhaps carbolic) at the LNP, while Premier Bligh announces government initiatives, flies to disaster zones, and fries up a steak on the barbie.

But the LNP obviously didn’t plan for anything other than a 5 or perhaps 6 week election campaign, and it’s showing.

If you peruse the first three days of the Brisbane Times’ campaign blog, you’ll note that the three major issues appear to be Professor Clive Palmer, Kevin Rudd and Campbell Newman’s snafus, probably in that order.

Very heavy pressure is being applied to the former Mayor, including a mobile billboard seeking to highlight his failure to repudiate Cairns candidate Gavin King’s remarks about women and sexual assault, and all manner of allegations about Newman’s pecuniary interests. Not only is he fending off the fallout from Clive Palmer’s spray and his own confusion about whether he’d discussed Galilee Basin projects with the Prof, but he’s also now claiming that he won’t debate Anna Bligh until all these terrible personal attacks stop.

Campbell had better hope Professor Palmer doesn’t establish his ‘independent newspaper’ during the campaign.

Whenever he’s seen in the media, Campbell Newman is either responding to allegations or denouncing allegations against him. Meanwhile, one could be forgiven for thinking not a skerrick of positive policy has emanated from the LNP, though there have been some announcements from Newman from which he’s backed away at a speed of knots.

Whether or not the public is paying much attention at this stage is another matter, but you do have to wonder whether Newman and the LNP can get on the front foot at some point, or even hold themselves together for the long weeks until March 24.

The ALP has nothing to lose, and is obviously applying maximum pressure to Newman in particular. But, as the Courier-Mail‘s Matt Condon writes, LNP accusations of an ALP smear campaign appear rather dubious.

Kevin Rudd said Campbell Newman was seeking to waltz into office with no scrutiny. Perhaps he is, but the scrutiny is coming nonetheless.

NB: All LP Queensland election coverage can be found here.

It’s well worth it for First Dog on the Moon, Guy Rundle and Bernard Keane alone! But there’s much more goodness at Crikey, and it really is Australia’s only daily source of quality professional media analysis and commentary.

Palmer, a large donor to the LNP, had been in the news because he alleged that the state Co-Ordinator General and QR National had made a political decision on a rail connection for the Galilee Basin. Palmer’s company, China First, is now suing QR National for $8 billion.

There has been controversy today about whether LNP leader Newman had met with Professor Palmer to discuss the project.

Palmer seems to have given quite the spray at his presser.

With Palmer known to be a close supporter and major funder of the LNP, and with a public perception that both major parties are too close to the mining industry, this is the last story the Opposition would want. But it will probably run and run.

NB: Clive Palmer holds the title of Professor at Griffith University. Update: It appears that Professor Palmer is an Adjunct Professor at Bond University, and chairs a Griffith University Board.

Now Tony Abbott has gone one up on his mentor.

In a speech to the National Press Club yesterday, the Opposition Leader included Medicare dental funding and the National Disability Insurance Scheme under the heading “an aspiration not a commitment”.

The Liberal leader’s spin was that this speech was his turn to positive policy.

But that policy, it seems, won’t happen because of Labor ‘debt’ and ‘deficits’.

The ABC’s Stella Young lets it rip at The Drum.

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The Gonski Review into School Funding is to report shortly, and yesterday an Essential Research poll found opinion split largely on partisan lines over the BER projects, but intriguingly with a much more favourable view held by people with actual children. 49% of parents with primary school kids rated it, with 27% thinking it poor, compared to 30/31 among all respondents.

The Opposition has claimed that it will keep an open mind on the Gonski Report, with Christopher Pyne simultaneously claiming that there’s nothing wrong with the current system of school funding. Meanwhile, the Review’s preliminary research has been under attack for months by the private school lobby, and we can anticipate that the Culture Warriors will denounce it as impeding choice, discouraging aspiration and all that blah should it recommend an approach more equitable towards the funding of public schools. Bishops and Cardinals will chime in.

Now, Labor made the Education Revolution one of the centrepieces of its 2007 campaign, but comprehensively lost the media fight over the BER.

Why?

A large part of the problem is that Ministers do not talk about education. Labor has been spooked – for what seems like forever – by a whole pile of narratives about aspiration, and demands that no private school be worse off (which are apparently not as risible to the media as Bob Hawke’s aspiration that no child live in poverty was). Julia Gillard has claimed education is her passion, but she rarely seeks to articulate a narrative. Perhaps this is because Ministers don’t want to prejudice an independent review, but the government has a right to a position, and still more, the Labor Party does.

So, yes, the media is full of the noisy bleating of self-interested lobbies and partisan commentators. But no one puts the contrary case, so it’s not just media bias. That is the story of today’s ALP.