A record of the 2004 election campaign that appeared originally on the Glug.com.au website. To read the full entry for each day click on the date.

1st July 2004 - The Canadian election at the weekend was a wonderful reminder of the power of the underdog effect and a lesson in why, between now and the Australian federal poll, we should studiously ignore the opinion polls.

2nd July 2004 - Readers of The Economist will be familiar with the political predictions of the Iowa Electronic Markets. That great British magazine regularly publishes the market on the US Presidential election as an alternative to relying on the opinion polls because history shows it is a better indicator.

3rd July 2004 - "Just imagine if you had nine Labor governments across Australia?" - John Howard on the ABC 7pm television news 3 July 2004. Australia has nine governments - a Federal Government plus those of six states and two territories.

4th July 2004 - The Sunday program's profile of Mark Latham did not live up to the somewhat frenetic predictions that preceded it in the newspapers. A couple of old-time Labor Party hacks venting their spleen at a young upstart who dudded them 15 years ago is hardly the stuff to rock a nation.

5th July 2004 - My introduction to political public relations was at the feet of Sir Frederick Wheeler when he was at the peak of his powers as Chairman of the Public Service Board.

16th July 2004 - Good sense for the Government to have its little ministerial reshuffle. Lame duck ministers are an impediment to sensible campaigning.

19th July 2004 - There are some things that a Labor Party Leader has to do during an election campaign that have little to do with improving his chances of victory.

20th July 2004 - Another set of form guides this morning. Polls in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian show the Liberal-National primary vote rising while Labor's falls yet Labor still ahead on a two-party preferred vote basis. The only significance I can see in this is that Prime Minister Howard will have trouble pretending for much longer that he is the underdog.

15 August 2004 - I am still struggling to work out what would be different if Australia has a change of Government when our election finally comes. The last couple of months of the phoney election campaign have not disclosed any significant differences.

18 August 2004 - I don't think I've ever known someone really well who I thought had never told me a lie. In my experience porkies and people just go together. Call it human nature. That is why most people who vote take what politicians tell them in an election campaign with a grain of salt. Why wouldn't we be sceptical after Malcolm Fraser and his "fist full of dollars"; Bob Hawke with "no child will live in poverty"; Paul Keating and his "L A W law" tax cuts; John Howard's "never, ever" be a GST and his "core and non core" promises?

19 August 2004 - Mark Latham is at least getting some gain from his pain. Being bed ridden with pancreatitis is undoubtedly unpleasant but the television footage of him in a public ward at St Vincent's is better than paid advertisements in reinforcing Labor's commitment to Medicare.

22 Aug 2004 - Foreign Minister Alexander Downer is prone to the glib remark. Who could forget "the things that batter"? The bad taste of that cheerful play on his "Things that Matter" policy document helped speed his departure as Opposition Leader. Making innocent fun of abused wives is not good politics. But since he was replaced by John Howard as Liberal Leader, Mr Downer has generally kept himself out of trouble. Indeed he has proved a competent enough Foreign Minister and made remarkably few slip ups in matters concerning his portfolio. This is why I'm not inclined to see his comments about the ANZUS Treaty and China as some kind of mistake.

27 August 2004 - John Howard planning to spend a Saturday night in the Lodge in Canberra can only mean one thing. He's off to see the Governor General on Sunday morning.

29 August 2004 - John Howard has his twitching shoulder back. In the past the twitch has come when he is under pressure and there it was as he announced 9 October as our election day. I would have thought it would not appear until about week three of the campaign so maybe he really does think he is the underdog! Not that the betting does.

31 August 2004 - Proposing a new tax is not how an Opposition Leader likes to start Day One of an election campaign. No wonder then that Mark Latham sounded uneasy when bright and early on a Monday morning John Laws asked him about Labor's plans for a new payroll tax. The Opposition Leader was all over the shop. No such plan. No new tax. Which was just what John Howard wanted to hear.

1 Sept 2004 - The conventional wisdom is that the sound state of the Australian economy is a help for the Government in its quest for re-election and the Liberal Party certainly thinks so.

1 Sept 2004 - If evidence was needed of the impact that independents are going to have in this election, Prime Minister John Howard has provided it. Mr Howard has taken the unusual step of writing to the good electors of Wentworth about the need to accept the democratic pre-selection processes of the Liberal Party and get behind the endorsed candidate Malcolm Turnbull.

2 September 2004 - Watching Newspoll Managing Director Sol Lebovic on television this week made me think it was time to repeat the advice I gave in my first election diary entry back on 1st July: “…between now and the federal poll, we should studiously ignore the opinion polls.”

2 September 2004 - I thought George Bush made a quite wonderful speech in accepting the Republican nomination for the Presidency of the United States. ... In launching the formal part of his own re-election campaign he even found time to give a plug to his mate John Howard.

4 September 2004 - Trees are the winners in the first week of Campaign 2004. Every politician wants to hug them and no one wants to cut them down

6th October 2004 - John Howard has his own secret weapon in the second preferences game. The Family First Party ...