There is no doubt at all that Malcolm Turnbull has one of the most truly forceful personalities on either side in the Federal Parliament.
If he has a rival, it is Tony Abbott. The Liberals were sensible to reject both of them as a leader when they met to lick their wounds in Canberra last week.
If the Coalition is to have any chance of getting back in three years' time, it is vital for it to stand on the record of the past 12 years, that is to say on the record of the Howard government.
They cannot do it by championing the cause of the religious right. It is reasonable to say that Australians do not wish to be ruled according to the word of God, either as interpreted by the Pope in Rome, Protestant evangelism which is demonstrating again that what works in America also works in Australia, or the Muslim Sharia law under which wives who stray face corporal punishment.
So Abbott got a message from someone, and withdrew from the race.
He also got a message from the first Newspoll beauty contest of the new era. Who would make the better opposition leader, Newspoll wanted to know. Abbott, with 9 per cent support, came in fourth, behind Turnbull with 38 per cent, Nelson with 18 per cent and Julie Bishop with 13 per cent.
Of the declared candidates, that left Turnbull, who is strong on style but short on judgement, and Nelson, who is mild-mannered where Turnbull is rambunctious but who makes exactly the right noises and in the end, did come through the middle.
It is fair to say that Turnbull talked himself out of the job.
Turnbull is a fighter who never gives in. He has enough confidence to outfit a regiment. His Bulletin column a few years ago, entitled the "Officious Bystander", was brilliant.
He was first to declare himself, but he got it badly wrong.
We should say sorry for crimes that were never committed. We should sign up to Kyoto, although it imposes burdens on nasty white capitalist countries like ours that do not fall on the noble, decent countries of Asia, the Middle East and Africa, never mind that China is the fastest growing country in the world. We should dump WorkChoices, which, Turnbull hastened to tell us, was a decision taken in Cabinet before he became a minister.
What's wrong with all of this? Well, for starters, the Rudd Government is going to do these things, has indeed already signed up to Kyoto. How can the Opposition criticise Government action, no matter how misguided, if it has endorsed it in advance?
Secondly, these positions on their merits are wrong. The Liberals should not say sorry for what past generations are alleged to have done, but didn't, nor should it endorse Kyoto or dump WorkChoices. If they repudiate the Howard years, they become a party without achievement, and with no vantage point from which to attack the Government once unemployment and interest rates begin to climb.
The argument is that when elections next come round, in 2010, Australia should re-elect a successful government, that it should return to office a team that will get unemployment falling instead of rising, as is inevitable once the unions are calling the shots.
Nelson smoothed off some of Howard's ideological rough edges, notably his hang-up about homosexuality.
At this stage you would have to say that repackaging the past is sensible political strategy. Nelson understood this. He also understood that repudiating it would be disastrous.
He didn't get a resounding endorsement, winning the leadership only by a couple of votes. Holding the line won't be all that easy.
It was widely reported after the leadership ballot that Turnbull called on Nelson and told him to be more aggressive. As can be the case in such matters, the discussion leaked. Nevertheless, if Nelson holds the line and keeps the party with him, then in three years' time, with interest rates high and unemployment rising steadily, the Opposition can start by promising a returns to the good old days.
And should he be more aggressive? That's not how Kevin Rudd won. And it is how Simon Crean, Kim Beazley and Mark Latham failed to win. The voters don't want a leader who is carping, miserable and negative.
Rudd did it by citing imaginary shortcomings in the way the country was being run, and then by assuring voters: I have a plan.
He sounded positive, and he sounded like a nice guy
. Of the three Liberal amigos, only Nelson could challenge Rudd on those grounds.
David Barnett is a Canberra writer.