Why are voters so fond of Kevin Rudd, the man who as prime minister turned Canberra into a First World Pyongyang minus the smooth running?
Without this popularity, today's vote would not be happening. Yet it has not been explained.
Some say the people like Rudd because they've never met him. This is true enough, but it fails to tell us why they like the unmet Rudd, the one they're familiar with from television. TV Rudd, I suggest, is a pretty unusual creature when compared with most other politicians we see on the screen. My theory is that, strange as it seems, it is this difference that many people are attracted by.
He reminds them of people - or characters - they see often on the tellie, and they like that. Such creations are far more warm and interesting, after all, than real politicians. In the context of television, Rudd's artificiality has been his greatest asset.
Rudd's face is distinctly odd, a smooth circle with relatively small features. It's almost child-like and can remind you of TV cartoon characters, whose faces are often based on children's. The exception is the mouth.
All politicians have to smile a lot when they don't want to, but few have been less successful in pretending to be sincere than Rudd, whose ghastly smile can look so false it seems to come from another face, creating the general effect of something constructed using an old police identikit.
Then there's his voice. I can't recall a prime minister less capable of speaking simple English than Rudd. His attempts at the vernacular - the Vegemite and the sauce bottle - are gruesome. Often his sentences sound like they were constructed in some other language and turned into English by a cheap translation app.
In terms of political character, he represents conveniently little. Changing his mind on climate change symbolised this, and those who have spent long hours looking for values and consistency report that he seems to stand for nothing except the sound of his own voice.
The general impression all this creates is of a sort of virtual personality, and possibly Rudd knows this. His spooky references to himself in the third person suggest an awareness of himself as a sort of construct, a work in progress.
While these characteristics mightn't remind us much of John Howard or Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott, they do bring to mind other people on the tellie. When Rudd's smooth face is immobile, he looks like the aforementioned cartoon character. When his relentless perkiness and utter certainty are to the fore, he's like a program presenter.
And when his use of language collapses and his depthless self-pity and ambition are given a run, he resembles a participant in a reality or therapeutic program - think Big Brother meets Dr Phil.
He is a man for all (ratings) seasons. There's little doubt Rudd is a creation of television. Spinmeister Bruce Hawker got him on to Sunrise in 2001, and this turned a politician without any base and few friends in the Labor Party into a celebrity. Ever since, he has been as dependent on his ratings as any other TV star. After he announced his resignation as minister last week, it was Hawker who appeared in the media to present his cause and to tell backbenchers to vote for him.
Rudd, with his combination of extreme narcissism and professional incompetence, has had a devastating effect on the Labor Party in recent years. At times - and despite Gillard's assertion to the contrary - we seem to have been governed by a reality TV program rather than a political party. But Rudd's combination of popular approval and party dislike remains highly unusual. Many politicians, such as Gillard and Abbott, still suffer from the opposite problem, of being respected by people they've actually dealt with but having difficulty reaching the public.
One reason for this is the need, on becoming leader, to establish a new persona by recalibrating youthful ideals for a wider audience - something Abbott has been doing with some success. But for someone like Rudd, who has never represented anything but his own ambition, this is not a problem. He is the ultimate product of the digital age and the 24-hour (make that four) news cycle.
All form and no content. But fortunately he seems unique.
For the good not just of the Labor Party but of Australian politics, this malevolent Tintin should receive as few votes as possible this morning.
The party should then consider reviving the classical Athenian practice of ostracism, where men whose extreme ambition threatened the efficient running of the state could be expelled for 10 years after a popular vote. They did not need to have committed any crime, and there was no defence. It was just a recognition that some people were hollow men driven by vicious rancour.
Whatever happens in today's vote, the Coalition will be the winner. This column has been a free ad for Tony Abbott, as has much of this newspaper and the entire media for days. It is a gift to the Coalition from TV Kev, and it will keep on giving.
Have you noticed how often Abbott's name has been mentioned by just about every Labor politician, plus Hawker, in recent days, as someone so threatening - and by implication so popular and powerful - that their actions must be guided by that fact?
That can only boost Abbott's standing. His control over his party has been evident this past week in their silence, apart from a few ads. The temptation to crow must be immense, and it will be interesting to see how they react to the events of today.
