It's Not Me, Barnaby, It's You.

Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce goes off-message again, saying the Coalition ranks are depressed, frustrated and fearful:

“There is a sense of depression about it. If the polls are the reality we're not going to lose, we're going to get annihilated,” Senator Joyce told Sky News.

He blamed the trend on voter ambivalence about a change of government. “It's frustrating for us, obviously.

“I see it like you're in a perfectly good marriage that's been going for 11 and a half years - would you get divorced just to see what it was like?”

“We're working on the premise that there are a lot of people out there who are still making up their minds.”

Well, if you got a better premise, go to it, right?

The News Ltd story above says yesterday's campaign launch "all but amounted to Mr Howard's last roll of the dice in the campaign". It's a fact echoed in another amazingly off-message News Ltd article:

You could almost smell the fear in the room as John Howard and Peter Costello addressed the Liberal faithful in Brisbane.

There is little left in the kitty if voters ignore the Prime Minister's largesse...

That is why Howard is prepared to again break the bank to win back those who have simply switched off on the Government's message.

How long before the bitching and blame games start up in the Coalition back rooms? How long before it all breaks into the open?