Canberra is out of fashion in federal politics but many MPs are unlikely to escape its gravitational pull this election - try as they might.
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The city, copping years of populist capital bashing, won't be the campaign stump of choice for most parliamentarians.
It's also likely to be unavoidable for many on the election trail as national events and conferences make it a necessary pit-stop.
The ACT's safe electoral margins will lower its campaign profile in the build-up to the May 18 poll, according to Monash University political scientist Zareh Ghazarian.
MPs, a fixture of Canberra life, cleared out on Thursday as Scott Morrison called the election.
Most aim to return, with their jobs, to a place the prime minister has tarred as "the bubble". But not for a while.
"In terms of campaigning, because they have got other electorates to be concerned about, they are not going to be devoting too much time to campaigning in these areas, especially when the margins are not really suggesting they will be seats to change hands on election night," Dr Ghazarian said.
Opposition leader Bill Shorten spots a Great Dane during a morning run along Lake Burley Griffin with athletes in Canberra during the 2016 election campaign.
Long the backdrop for policy announcements and press conferences, Capital Hill and businesses within a convenient stone's throw will feature less on televisions. In their place will be the factories, farms and shopfronts of swing seats.
Despite its safe margins, the ACT still sees a lot of the campaigns, according to managing director at campaigning consultants Hawker Britton, lobbyist and former Labor preselection candidate Simon Banks.
In the nearly two months before the 2016 election, both Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten attended one campaign event in each of the territory's federal electorates Fenner and Canberra.
The national capital tends to attract campaigning MPs from interstate for the very reason it cops so much flak - it's the seat of government.
After the prime minister's efforts to malign Canberra, his parliamentary colleagues might imagine themselves Al Pacino in the final Godfather film: "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in".
Mr Banks said the number of election campaign events held in Canberra in the last three months far exceeded those held elsewhere.
National events - such as a conference on integrity commission models at Parliament House this week, and National Press Club events - will draw MPs back to the ACT.
On either side of these, they're likely to squeeze in some campaigning in Canberra and its surrounds.
It's the same when parliament sits. Mr Shorten spruiked Labor's electric vehicles target at a charging station in the city centre earlier this month. As Treasurer, Mr Morrison promoted a 2018 budget measure assisting craft brewers at Fyshwick's popular watering hole Capital Brewing.
"They do pass through. But compare that to the amount of time they spend in key battlegrounds," Mr Banks said.
The Coalition and Labor parties have a month to campaign, and dozens of marginal seats to win. Both will have to spread their heavyweight campaigners.
During a typical five week campaign, major party leaders tended to visit a key marginal seat two or three times, Mr Banks said.
"The amount of time they spend in Canberra is not that much dissimilar."
Neighbouring the ACT's electorates, the former bellwether seat of Eden-Monaro will draw more campaign attention and raise the focus on the capital region.
Further east, but still of interest to Canberrans, the seat of Gilmore is ultra-marginal and a prize for both sides needing to gain seats to form government.
Dr Ghazarian said both Eden-Monaro and Gilmore were seats that decided elections.
"When the campaign proper starts, I expect both would be featuring prominently in the campaign and announcements that the major parties make," he said earlier this month.
On the way from Canberra Airport to Eden-Monaro's major population centre at Queanbeyan, it makes sense to campaign in the ACT along the way.
Bubble or not, it appears there's no escaping for MPs.