SOMETIMES IT'S ABOUT WHO YOU'RE NOT:

Something is stirring (Bagehot, 2/22/07, The Economist)

Three quite big and important things appear to be going on. The first is that a sort of positive feedback loop has been established in which the long-standing misgivings about Mr Brown within his own party are now being projected back to it by the voters. Senior Labour figures glumly go through the motions of declaring in public their utter confidence in Mr Brown's prime-ministerial credentials. He is the most successful chancellor of the exchequer since records began, a political heavyweight of towering intellectual stature and soaring moral purpose. It's a testimonial just close enough to the truth not to provoke sniggers, but they and we know it's only half the story. What increasingly worries ministers, and those Labour MPs in southern seats whose majorities hang by a thread, is that, unless he can reveal a different side to his personality, dour, stiff, slightly odd Mr Brown will struggle to reach those aspiring middle-class voters whom Mr Blair could still just about deliver in 2005.

The second big thing is that the mood of the electorate seems to be swinging from apathetic boredom and irritation with the government to a feeling that maybe it's time for a change. If that is right, Mr Brown, for all his admirable qualities, is the last person on earth who can deliver it. However much Mr Brown and his supporters insist that Labour will look very different when he is prime minister, the fact is that Mr Brown is universally recognised as the joint-architect of the government's successes and failures. It is hard to see what sort of meaningful fresh start Mr Brown can offer. [...]

The other factor behind that fourth Tory victory was that the more people saw of Labour's leader, Neil Kinnock, the less they liked the thought of him as prime minister. The third big thing that may be happening this time around is that voters are inching towards the opposite conclusion about Mr Cameron.