We prefer hard truths to soft options With Kevin Rudd back in the Prime Minister's slot, Tony Abbott will have to reassess his approach. IT'S not clear that Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin ever actually uttered the words "There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader," but history ascribes them to the 19th-century French politician anyway. Whoever came up with them, as a summation of so much of democratic politics they're hard to beat. With the 2013 election almost here, we're going to be reminded just how much modern political leadership can be about following rather than leading. Or, in the worst instances, about nothing much at all. Just to get an idea of how soon the election campaign could be upon us: if Kevin Rudd decides on August 24, he'll have to call the election in less than three weeks. Purely in terms of the Government's self-interest, that would be a baffling choice. Three years ago, it might be remembered, a Labor leader installed during the last week of June spent a few weeks tidying up some policies and called an election for the second-last Saturday in August. It didn't work out well, so why Rudd would want to tempt fate by following the same timeline is confounding. That last election, in 2010, was an absolute stinker, a festival of cheap slogans, scripted responses and empty rhetoric. The country still hasn't really recovered from it. Even when Julia Gillard lent weight to the perception that the campaign was a cavalcade of fakery by declaring that she would no longer comply with the dictates of her advisers and would instead present "the real Julia," it merely served to deepen public cynicism. That cynicism was directed at her because of the way she had toppled Rudd and extended to the political process itself. At the same time, Tony Abbott ran with an economic policy that was the product of dodgy costings and built the Coalition's manifesto on bumper sticker-speak. The result was an expression of voters' frustration. They refused to award a victory to either of the big parties. Collectively, they were saying to the main contenders: "If that's what you want to give us, this is what we'll give you in return." Until the 2013 campaign is up and running, we won't know if the major parties have heeded that message. What we do know is that the Vitamin B shot provided by Rudd's restoration as Labor leader will require the Coalition to engage with the Government. If Gillard had stayed, all the Coalition would have needed to deploy against the Government was a defensive strategy, holding the line it had already established against Labor. With Rudd back in the Prime Minister's slot, Abbott will have to reassess his approach. This might - just might - mean that the nation will see Rudd and Abbott slug it out by arguing over policy and not relying on personal attacks. But fear of failure can bring out the worst in our politicians and there's plenty of evidence that, faced with their own career mortality, the low road can all too often prove irresistible. Of course, it's not just personal attacks that constitute the low road in politics - far from it. Plenty has been said over the years about the asylum seeker issue and how easily it can be exploited. For me, there's an issue that's more enduring and just as troublesome for the politicians who tie themselves to it and that's the cost of living. One of the key drivers in the defeat of the Howard government in 2007 was Labor's exploitation of voter concerns about pressures on household budgets. It's all very easy to join in the complaints. Every generation complains about prices and Rudd and his treasury spokesman, Wayne Swan, were happy to join in. They promised to bring in mechanisms that would keep grocery and petrol prices down, the unlamented and unworkable Grocery Watch and Fuel Watch, their government's first conspicuous failures. It had been a classic case of Rudd and Swan telling voters what they wanted to hear, of following, rather than leading. If there's one encouraging sign about the reborn Rudd, it's his downbeat take on the economy now that China's growth and the resource boom are cooling. COMPARE that with Gillard's recent speech in which she pilloried anybody who dared to contemplate an economic downturn. Her assessment was that there was no room for subtlety when talking about the economy. Rudd, perhaps because of his overcooked performance on living costs six years ago, has reached a different conclusion. This is one of the great paradoxes of democratic politics. Voters like hearing what they want to hear but above all they know they'd be better off hearing the truth and they'll respect politicians who level with them. In Victoria, we've seen what can happen when a Government gets down to business under a new leader: the political landscape can change quickly. Denis Napthine more often than not talks straight and his approach has revived a Government that was in poor shape. Three years ago, with the mining boom at full tilt, Australia could perhaps afford a dud federal election campaign but it surely can't withstand two in a row. There's a long history in Australia of governments going on cruise control thanks to trade arrangements with Britain, tariff protection and state controls on currency and incomes. We're not steeped in embracing hard truths in our politics. But, ultimately, that's what leadership is about. As first John Howard discovered by unveiling WorkChoices after he'd won in 2004, and then Gillard found by opting for a carbon tax after the 2010 election, leaders survive by telling it like it is before they go to the people. And it doesn't harm our belief in our democracy, either. Shaun Carney is a Herald Sun columnist