Advantage but no honeymoon

This happened because the momentum was with Abbott as the new leader.

As of Wednesday, the national conversation has changed again and momentum has shifted to Gillard.

She has quickly introduced compromise into her repertoire, playing a conciliatory card on the resource super-profits tax, and she will no doubt start to fill in the personal story and the policy vacuum.

Now Abbott is on the edges of debate, supporting a position the miners may well abandon, and risks sounding shrill rather than strong.

At the same time Gillard reminds voters of WorkChoices, a divisive issue with blue-collar conservative swingers.

So she matches Abbott on forthrightness and determination, and adds an element of consultation, while pushing him into an area where he is seen as being too aggressive, all the time colouring in her portrait, so voters get a more rounded view of who she is and what she can do for them.

With only four months at most to the next election, the odds would have to favour the Gillard experiment to succeed.

The Liberals thought they were going to fall over the line, but now they've found another few laps to run, and Labor has fresh legs in the race.