There are at least four reasons to buy The Australian newspaper: Bill Leak, Phillip Adams, Matt Price, and George Megalogenis. In today's Oz Megalogenis (Lazarus PM prepares to do it again) counts the ways in which John Howard has always managed to bounce back from horrendous polls as election time nears:

The simple answer is he backflipped, he bribed, then he changed the public conversation. It was the last move that caught Labor out each time. Howard dealt with the issues that troubled him by taking them off the table.

And Labor could never get the poor old electorate to remember what they were.

Howard is the political equivalent of the confidence trickster who operates the age-old shell game. You know, the low-rent huckster who emerges from a dark alley to con folks into betting on which of three bottle caps is hiding the pea, while his shills pretend to be excited customers. Like his swindling counterpart, Howard changes the bottle caps of policy direction faster than the eye can see or the mind can remember. Often enough, there is no policy pea under the cap at all. But wait! Here come the cops -- or a government-orchestrated diversion -- and the electorate quickly move on, while Thimblerigger John and his ministerial shills slip back into the alley's shadow.

Megalogenis' name is on the byline of another article in the Oz: Miners could save PM's job:

For John Howard, the key to turning climate change to his electoral advantage can be found in central Queensland.

If the Prime Minister can convince enough voters in Capricornia that Labor has gone too green and would sacrifice coal industry jobs, then the task of holding power will be made a little easier

Well, Wedgie John isn't the only wily politician on the circuit this year. That's right, folks, Johnny's coal wedge bounced right off Kevin Rudd's tightly clenched buttocks: Howard, Rudd slam Brown's coal plan.

The Littlest Swindler who conned a nation for eleven years must be wondering if he can do it again. He'll need all the help he can get from his wife: There, there John repeating over and over on a loop in his power-walking ear bud, everything will be all right, dear. Janette will need to be on duty 24/7 to soothe her homuncular hubby as he fights to remain Australia's most powerful self-created Frankenstein.

-- Olney Garkle