Ill wind blows as weather changes on Rudd Not the hair! Kevin Rudd is blown about on the campaign trail in Hobart. Tasmania's unemployment rate is high and growing uglier, the state's economy is in recession and, worse for a Prime Minister hoping for a little sunshine, the weather is treacherous. Kevin Rudd awoke on Saturday to discover he couldn't control the polls and arrived in Hobart to learn he couldn't control his umbrella, either. My business is simply to say 'I'm Kevin, I'm from Queensland, I'm from Australia, I'm the prime minister, this is what we've done so far, this is where we plan to take the country in the future, and it's for the good people of Australia to decide. He flew in later than scheduled, stayed mysteriously bunkered for half an hour in his plane on the Hobart tarmac, possibly contemplating the capricious nature of polls - the morning's Fairfax/Nielsen poll that judged him less trustworthy than Opposition Leader Tony Abbott - and by the time he made it to the Hobart showground, the very environment chose to punish him. Freelance photographer John Voss's foot is run over by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's protection team vehicle as they depart the Hobart showgrounds. Drizzling rain turned to frozen sleet and a sudden tearing wind ripped inside out the umbrella offered as shelter by one of his protective agents. There was no let-up. Within the tumult a police car managed to run over the foot of a local photographer. By the time Mr Rudd had made it to the shelter of the show society's rooms, no less than three prime ministerial brollies had been blown askew. Mr Rudd had come bearing a gift, too, though in the heightened expectations driven by an election campaign, it would be judged modest: a promise of $5 million to help Hobart's show society transform its humble showgrounds into something much grander. Mr Rudd, whose contracting tax purse doesn't allow him the unbridled generosity of previous leaders on the hustings, enthused about agricultural shows and how he loved the Ekka, his marvellous hometown showground in Brisbane. A local journalist was unkind enough to wonder whether the $5 million would be enough to do all that was promised in Hobart and whether the vision of retail facilities on the site would ever be approved by local authorities. Mr Rudd wasn't about to allow local development regulations to blindside him on top of his other travails. He'd offered the money and the appropriate authorities could work out the rest. Naturally, one of the travelling media just had to ask him about the morning's poll showing Labor, at the end of the first week of the election campaign, trailing the Coalition 48-52 on the two-party preferred basis. The Prime Minister tried to make the most of it, saying it showed just what he'd been saying: Labor was the underdog. But he couldn't resist a jab at Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, whom he'll be debating Sunday night. When it was pointed out the Fairfax/Nielsen poll showed voters trusted Mr Abbott more than him, 47-40, Mr Rudd - who began the campaign by asking voters "Who do you trust?" - told the pesky media pack, "Well, I don't get into the business of analysis, that's your job." And the Prime Minister plunged back into the Tasmanian weather. Minutes after he was gone, the sun came out and a rainbow curved above the old city. There is a reason why political strategists advise against risking a winter election campaign.