By Peter Reith

Photo: Kevin Rudd succeeded in 2007 because the Howard government had run out of puff. (AAP: Lukas Coch)

With Labor once again heading towards electoral defeat, it should be obvious that Kevin Rudd won office in 2007 not because of his own merit, but because the Howard government had reached its expiry date, writes Peter Reith.

Both sides of politics are running negative ads, the economy is at the centre of the contest, and the style of the campaign is more presidential than ever.

The Labor leadership has its own way of broadcasting the likely result; Rudd and his senior colleagues keep repeating that if an election had been held yesterday then Abbott would be leader.

If that becomes true, the issue will be whether Rudd stays in the Parliament. If Labor losses are similar to the losses expected under Gillard then the knives will really be out big time and Rudd will be finished. But let's not get ahead of the game.

How the climate has changed in the last week!

As the 2013 election unfolds, doubts about Rudd, the campaigner, have spilled into the press. One day Rudd says he wants a more gentle polity, and the next day he launches attack ads against Abbott.

It beats me how Rudd can run ads on unemployment when Labor's recent economic statement forecast unemployment to rise to 6.25 per cent. That is a lot more unemployed than possible under Abbott cutbacks in the public service or the effect of Rudd's efficiency savings imposed on federal departments.

One month Rudd's team reckons an Opposition proposal to develop northern Australia is a 'whacky' idea, and then Rudd announces a similar initiative. The team traveling with Rudd say one thing, the CHQ says something else, and the anti-Rudd people start backgrounding the press about their internal divisions.

Three or four weeks ago, Liberal supporters were worried about Rudd and Labor supporters were daring to dream that Rudd would keep Labor in office. In recent days, there have been some bad polls for Labor, with Newspoll showing Abbott more popular than Rudd and Labor's primary vote down to 34 per cent.

Of course, there is only one poll that counts, but there has been a swing in the public mood. The result is that Labor supporters are casting aside the dream and starting to think that a disaster might be just round the corner.

Maybe the Labor caucus was right; maybe the decision to bring back Rudd was just a mad moment of desperation. Many must be thinking that the return of Rudd may have been a mirage all along. Maybe the intense dislike of Rudd exhibited for nearly three years (when the caucus refused to bring him back) was the right political assessment.

Despite Labor's delusions about the Howard years, the public have never been in doubt that Howard left the budget in surplus and in good shape and he had stopped the boats. This is why the Coalition is able to hammer Labor over its record.

The lesson for Labor out of the 2013 election will be that incompetent management (under Rudd, Gillard and Swan) and its consequences were Labor's vulnerability. In which case, Labor's poor performance will not be just the fault of the leaders but the failures of a weak caucus, its lack of understanding of the operation of a modern economy, its predisposition to government solutions for every problem, and its blind allegiance to the union movement.

It is too early to call the election and it is certainly a recipe for complacency for the Coalition to think that the result is obvious. And Rudd is right to not put up the white flag. Anything can happen in an election.

But recent history will need rewriting. The first point to be rewritten is the narrative that Rudd was a great campaigner in 2007. Rudd succeeded because the Howard government had run out of puff. The public thought it was time for a change; the same motive that helped Labor win under Whitlam.

Various aspects gave Labor the political momentum it needed to win. Rudd was younger than Howard. Rudd misled the public that he would be a fiscal conservative like Howard. Labor ran hard on climate change and the union movement funded a lot of Labor's campaign.

It was also the case that, because the economy was in such good shape, the public were comfortable with a change of economic managers. The real reason the Coalition lost in 2007 was because the public does not let any party stay permanently in office, governments have an expiry date, the Coalition party room was not convinced it had a better alternative to Howard, and Rudd was a viable alternative.

The second point to be rewritten is that Labor's policy positions for managing the economy were adequate for a modern economy. Labor had a toxic mix of decision makers (including the Greens) who were not up to the job and a party hidebound by union interests, factionalism and too many second-rate union appointees.

Labor did a poor job in managing the GFC. Many of the core Labor positions - e.g. that our debt level is not an issue - will disappear on September 7. Overturning Labor's policy mistakes and starting to clean up the mess is merely the start. The vacuum caused by Labor's expected departure will need to be filled by a continuing reinstatement of key Coalition principles on issues including fiscal policy, workplace relations, climate change policy and boat people.

So far, this election has followed the usual script, and most Australians will breathe a sigh of relief when this election is over. The internal conflicts within Labor were damaging for nearly all of the six years.

The lesson from their behaviour does not need to be rewritten. If you can't govern yourselves, you can't govern the country. This fundamental law of politics is well accepted but in Labor's experience not easily followed. That is a lesson Labor will need to learn again starting after September 7.

Peter Reith was a senior cabinet minister in the Howard government from 1996 to 2001 and then a director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development from 2003 to 2009. View his full profile here.

Rudd was never the great campaigner of 2007 - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)