Party Games: Kevin Rudd an old hand on the hustings Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said it's time for the people to decide his fate. KEVIN Rudd, the acclaimed campaigner, is facing his toughest test. Just 5½ weeks after being brought back to the leadership for his skills on the hustings, the Prime Minister has dropped the flag for a September 7 election. Having taken Labor from death row to a firming competitor, Rudd begins a take-no-prisoners 33-day contest with Tony Abbott. Seasoned backroom operators such as Graham Richardson and proven vote-magnets such as Peter Beattie paint Rudd as a nimble, moving target campaigner who can play offence and defence with consummate skill. For the believers and doubters, everyone is about to find out how good he is. The 2013 campaign will be different from Rudd's previous effort - his victory over John Howard in 2007 - mainly because he will be the incumbent, carrying baggage of six years of Labor Government. Rudd thinks he can be the change the people want, while still allowing voters to re-elect Labor. In 2007, Rudd ran a risk adverse campaign which narrowed and isolated differences between Labor and the Howard Government but maximised any comparison of himself against the then-PM. The subtext was voters could change the Prime Minister without changing the government. Now Rudd is saying this election is about changing the PM - from Julia Gillard to himself - while leaving the Government in place. "Don't worry about sacking Gillard, I've already done that," is Rudd's behind-the-hand whisper to voters. Announcing the election Rudd turned incumbency on its head by saying he was the change for the better while Abbott was the negative past, deserving rejection. Tony Abbott will try to rerun his 2010 campaign: "Labor is a bad, failed Government which has stuffed up everything and has to go." This worked a treat against Gillard then while her campaign was crippled by leaks.and internal treachery. Abbott will face a test using these tactics with Rudd as opponent - a fresh face who has been excused from confused minority government antics. Rudd will run on the slogan of "substance not slogans" - a pitch to compare and contrast what he sees as his policy depth with Abbott's snappy one-liners. This is, by necessity, risky. The baggage of six years can't be whitewashed - an economic record dominated by debt and deficit, a deeply unpopular carbon tax, a shambolic series of failures on asylum seekers and head-spinning party disunity. Rudd has moved to put these negatives to rest or in a new context. The polls give him the benefit of the doubt, much to the frustration of Abbott and the Coalition. To bolster Rudd's professed positives, Labor will paint Abbott as a risk and ideological conservative, capable of stalling the economy. Abbott has a script he doesn't need to tweak that much. He will position himself as the latest version of trusted and successful Coalition leaders, drawing a line from the Howard era. The baggage Rudd has been trying to inoculate himself from, will be front and centre in Abbott's campaign: Labor cannot be trusted to run the economy, manage taxing and spending, protect our borders or even govern itself. It will be an election fought primarily in Queensland and the Sydney suburbs, although a dozenor so seats in Victoria, Tasmania, the NT and around Perth could be in play. Every one of the coming 33 days will be hard-fought. Team Rudd and Team Abbott will go all-out to win each of them. and hope enough of their respective messages get through. For Rudd, the prize is not just victory but triumph over his own party, which dumped him three years ago. Abbott has one last shot to prove he's not just a street fighting, effective Opposition leader but an alternative Prime Minister.