The campaigns are rolling. The lines are sharpening. The media packs are circling.
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After horror starts, the leaders are hoping their gaffes and stumbles are behind them. There is always hope.
What do we take away from Tuesday? Anthony Albanese is still very, very sorry for not being prepared for an economics pop quiz.
The Prime Minister is not letting it go. Why would he?
"He missed it by that much," he extolled as he flung his arms out wide.
The Opposition Leader admits he made a mistake and he is paying for it. Not knowing the unemployment and Reserve Bank official cash rates was a gaffe gift to the other side, even if former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard summed up a certain "so what" mood.
He would, to quote Taylor Swift, "shake it off". How very 2014 for the music-minded Labor leader.
But it is Scott Morrison who entered the election on the back foot. He remains dogged by his sidelined minister Alan Tudge and questions over a $500,000 plus taxpayer-funded payout to his former lover, as well as polls still showing the Coalition trailling the ALP.
And so unwelcome campaign trail questions point to his popularity being "on the nose". Is he "damaged goods across Australia?"
Mr Morrison grits his teeth and strikes back.
"It's not a popularity test," he told the travelling media.
"Barnaby said this the other day, you go to the dentist, doesn't matter whether you like him or her or not, but you'd want to know that they're good at their job. And that's what this is about. This is about whether people are good at managing the economy and have a stronger economic plan."
He is right and he is not at the same time.
The May 21 vote is not for or against Scott Morrison as a person. It could be. The Prime Minister certainly does not want to frame it that way. Technically, the House of Representatives vote is for people standing in a particular electorate and we are not all in Mr Morrison's Sydney seat of Cook.
Political polls ask separate questions about preferred prime ministers and that is still not a popularity contest.
Around the world, people vote all the time for people they don't personally like. It usually comes down to competence and a solid record.
Mr Morrison points to this core question himself as he stands on a full term record as Prime Minister: "You'd want to know that they're good at their job."
Ask Ray Drury showed us from a Newcastle pub, not everyone is in the mood this election to shake off complaints.