Who would you turn gay for?
Even since the then governor of Arkansas, one William Jefferson Clinton, appeared on MTV during the 1992 presidential campaign and happily fielded the question of whether he wore "boxers or briefs", politicians around the world have sought to woo the youth vote by revealing similar intimacies and subjecting themselves to similar indignities (for the record, Clinton was a briefs man).
On Sunday night, Kevin Rudd trod the same teen and twentysomething-lined path, .
As I've mentioned before, Rove McManus has already had a major, if inadvertent, impact on this election. After the tragic death of Rove's soap star wife, Belinda Emmett, the then Labor leader Kim Beazley . But he mistakenly conveyed them to Karl Rove, the former White House advisor commonly known as 'Bush's brain,' rather than the chirpy chat show host.
For the gaffe-prone "Bomber Beazley", this proved a blunder too far and Kevin Rudd pounced. Within the month, he was installed as the new Labor leader.
So having played a role in Rudd's rise would Rove McManus now contribute to his fall? Would a politician famed for his control freakery survive in this most uncontrollable and freaky of settings?
The Labor leader escaped with his reputation intact, and possibly enhanced. True, his self-edit function remained very much deployed. But this robo-politico also came across as spontaneous, funny and unprogrammed. At the same time, he maintained his "I-could-soon-be-the-prime-minister-of-this-country" dignity.
To the substance of the interview. What did ear-wax taste like, asked the probing Mr Mcmanus? The Labor leader claimed not to have eaten any, and that his famously ear-wax-coated finger had merely touched his lips.
Had his time as a diplomat in Sweden increased his appreciation of the pop sensation Abba? Barak or Hillary? "Hillary", he quickly replied. What was the difference between a geek and a nerd?
And would he beat Mr Howard in a bar-room brawl? "If I couldn't, wouldn't there be a real problem?" Mr Rudd said. "The guy's 20 years older than me."
But then came the question with which Rove McManus always ends his interviews - a query which the Labor leader had clearly anticipated and seemingly war-gamed: 'Who would you turn gay for?'
"It's funny you raised that," deadpanned Rudd, as he pulled out a notepad from his pocket, on which his staffers had proffered a fewsuggestions - among them, Dame Edna and Kel Knight from the hit Aussie comedy show Kath and Kim.
But then he got mildly serious. "There's only one person for me", he said. "That's my wife Therese."
"Is she a man?" Rove shot back.
Greens leader, the openly gay Senator Bob Brown, came on the show afterwards. "Who would you turn straight for?" asked Rove. The Aussie songtress Missy Higgins, Bob Brown jokingly replied.
A couple of weeks ago, during a visit to a shopping centre in central New South Wales, a shop assistant from a jeans shop asked Mr. Howard who he would turn gay for. He laughed it off, and delivered no response. "As for boxers or briefs?" Your guess is as good as mine.
UPDATE: The latest poll from the "soapie seat" of Wentworth in Sydney shows Malcolm Turnbull, the environment minister, trailing four points behind his Labor rival, George Newhouse. Neither the Liberal Party nor its forerunners have ever lost the seat.
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Bob may have known more about Missy Higgins than Rove did.