WHEN Malcolm Turnbull and his impressive collection of leather jackets leapt out of the talk show panels and into power last September, his personal popularity seemed unassailable.
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A mere seven months later, and now some seven weeks from a double dissolution of the federal parliament, he's been well and truly assailed in both the political polls and public opinion.
A recent Fairfax-Ipsos poll (admittedly in a national survey of just 1402 electors) returned a 50-50 split in support for the Coalition and Labor, assuming a repeat of allocation preferences.
For the LNP, the latter would be more of a concern than the former, as the Australian voting public doesn't elect the prime minister presidentially; the party in power elects their leader.
The ALP might be interested to care that much talk about Shorten in the street is how gaunt the Labor leader has been looking of late, in a trimmed down version of the Bill we knew.
The Greens might also care to consider why the chat about party figurehead Richard Di Natale is still referencing how he didn't wear socks with dress shoes in a recent magazine feature.
When the most notable features of your party leader is their sartorial choice or apparent weight loss, the fixers have to ask why political messaging has the cut-through of a butter knife.
Our politicians are packaged into neat nightly news nuggets of slogans and stage-managed encounters with business people and battlers alike, and the electorate has had enough of it.
A return to real arenas is on the rise, with the forthcoming Goulburn forum of (LNP) Barnaby Joyce, (ALP) Joel Fitzgibbon and (Greens) Di Natale the second held in Hume this month.
What do these men mean to the local electorate? Little, in a direct sense, but even if they were our local candidates, it's their party we'd really be voting for, as much as the individual.
So indirectly, they mean a lot, as does the opportunity for Goulburnians to get along to Goulburn High School on Wednesday, May 25, to ask the questions that deserve answers.
The forum is free, as it rightly should be, and will be broadcast in real time on television and radio by its host media outlet (the ABC). Ticket bookings are required, though.
Two journalists from the Goulburn Post have accepted invitations to the forum and will be reporting on the entire two-hour debate, as the ABC plans to broadcast only its first hour.
Wherever you intend to direct your preferences on July 2, it's a good idea to direct your interest in the meantime to Goulburn's Regional Leaders Debate on Wednesday, May 25.
