Election campaigning is by its very nature a demanding business. Every day, you're up before dawn to greet a never-ending conga line of hands to shake, messages to deliver and votes to win.
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But not necessarily if you're one K. Rudd.
On Monday, when he was quizzed on breakfast radio about the stresses of his gig, he waved the inquiry away with a palm frond: "I'm just sort of relaxing and sort of having a beer every half an hour."
Granted, Rudd must have a different definition to "sort of relaxing" than most other people. As Kampaign Kevin began week four, he squeezed his half-hourly beers in between no fewer than seven radio interviews. After that morning warm-up, he made a short trip to a childcare centre in Kingsford Smith to pep up Matt Thistlethwaite's election chances (recent polling shows a worrying lack of pep) and pep down the Coalition's "unaffordable" paid parental scheme.
Little kids may not appreciate the ins and outs of the contest but some at least appreciated that they had a special visitor. "I just saw you on the TV!" cried Louis, 3.
Working his way around the faux grass playground, Rudd first visited a group of kids doing puzzles, where a small girl proudly told the Prime Minister she had new pants.
Next, he said hello to a group bouncing around on squishy shapes, which Rudd optimistically described as a ''jumping castle'' (he is into positivity, after all).
Finally he made it to the wooden blocks area, where a clearly delighted Rudd realised he had an easy segue into talking about infrastructure (two campaign messages for the price of one).
"We know building, too," Rudd told the wriggling, mat-bound group.
But the young folk were not as impressed. As the PM tried to help with their construction, Victoria, 3, told him: ''That doesn't fit.''
Rudd then pinged his way back to the city where he announced $52 million to progress high-speed rail for the Australian east coast. With an eye-watering cost of $114 billion for the Brisbane to Melbourne stretch, Labor isn't suggesting that high-speed rail will be running in the near future. But perhaps that's not the point.
"If we were to build this entire 1750-kilometre high-speed rail project from Brisbane to Melbourne by 2035, it would cost less than Mr Abbott's unaffordable, unfair, paid parental leave scheme for the same period of time," Rudd observed from the glassy confines of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Offices. "Put that into context."
The fact that only the Sydney to Melbourne length is mooted for completion by 2035 seemed to have skipped the Prime Minister's attention. But then, he was sort of relaxing.
