The flip side to Tony Abbott's personal poll dive through 2014 is the phoenix-like rise of an opposition from the ashes of political rejection to preferred party in less than a year.
Labor's fear is a pre-eminently human one: that their man has peaked very early.
As a direct function of that ascent, the urgent question of whether Labor's Bill Shorten is "up to it" arises and will probably stoke as much opinion around backyard barbecues this summer as debate about whatever happened to straight-talking Tony.
It will take no time at all in these exchanges for someone to note that Shorten has been propelled to a winning position more by Abbott's betrayals than by any genius the Labor leader has demonstrated.
He really has not had to do anything difficult yet - certainly nothing as complex as balance a budget, thus creating new classes of losers in the process.
He knows he is vulnerable too. Vulnerable to the charges of vacuousness and endless negativity. Vulnerable to the charge of being a hollow man, interested only in securing the prize.
Voters should demand more from an alternative prime minister and increasingly they will come to as this term matures.
If Shorten really is possessed of the right stuff, he is yet to prove it.
That will be clearer when he explains what he will do on emissions trading, on a revised resources rent tax, on other contentious tax policies, and, of course, on how he intends to get the deficit down.
Popularity ahead of these tests is great for morale but it is also unrealistic.
