We know Kevin Rudd has what it takes to win elections and it would be amazing to see him lose the one this year. So we know he can survive as prime minister. A much harder question is whether he has what it takes to be a good prime minister.
It's too soon to be sure - after all, John Howard had a terribly rocky first term - but it isn't looking good.
It's unfair to say, as Tony Abbott does, that he's all talk and no action. If this line is biting in the electorate - as it seems to be - it's the judgment of someone who hasn't been paying enough attention.
Rudd has been frenetically active since Day 1. So it's truer to say he doesn't have a lot to show for all his activity. And some of what he has to show isn't very impressive. His notorious attention to detail doesn't seem to be paying off.
His greatest achievement has been to minimise the severity of the recession, but the absence of a negative isn't something that sticks long in the electorate's mind.
The media, which reflect the weaknesses of human nature, tend to focus on the few things that go wrong and ignore the majority of things that go right, thus giving us an exaggerated picture of how bad the world is.
This is true of their reporting of the insulation scheme and the school building program. Even so, you get the feeling we're seeing an instance of Rudd's inexperience as a leader - his belief that, by thumping the table, he could make things happen.
They did happen, but they didn't happen well. The federal urge to take over state responsibilities ignores the truth that the federal bureaucracy simply isn't good at delivering services on the ground.
Rudd has taken on far too much, then failed to get policies right. He devotes too much time to criticising his political opponents which - counterproductively from his perspective - legitimises their contribution and gives them more media attention than they'd otherwise get.
He wastes a lot of the time of himself, his ministers and their departments in his unceasing efforts to dominate the news cycle. They have to produce an unending stream of minor ''announceables'', while he devotes inordinate time to going places and doing things that will get him onto the evening news. This is leadership?
I think it was the veteran journalist Laurie Oakes who said that in Howard's first term he made every mistake in the book - but he only made them once. Has Rudd got such a steep learning curve? I hope so, but I'm beginning to wonder.
Then there's the question of whether he has the courage to introduce needed but controversial reforms; whether his ultimate commitment is to making Australia better or just staying in charge of it.
Rudd has made much of his grand crusade to reform hospitals and healthcare, but how much courage does that take? Who's he up against? The public? No, the great majority want to see a federal takeover of hospitals. All he's taking on are the premiers - who, as always, are merely haggling over the price.
The longer we study his reforms the less impressive they are. They respond to the public's preoccupation with hospitals rather than focusing on the more important issues of primary care and prevention. They'd do nothing to end the Blame Game - as Rudd keeps claiming they would - nor would they do much to shorten hospital waiting lists, which are essentially the product of the strength of demand relative to the funds you make available.
They'd neither transfer all the responsibility for hospitals to the feds, nor ensure there was enough flexibility at the regional level to respond to differing patient needs.
But, in any case, Rudd has changed the subject to health because he no longer wants to talk about his first great reform promise, the carbon pollution reduction scheme.
Public support for action against climate change has softened, so Rudd has switched to hospital reform, which is still popular. This man is a champion of good policy?
Rudd hasn't said a word about climate change for months, even though his emission trading scheme bill is back before Parliament.
What's his problem? He hasn't decided whether to continue the fight. His political advisers tell him the trading scheme's now a vote-loser and he should abandon it, while his policy advisers are telling him that to abandon his commitment would greatly damage his credibility as a leader.
You can say that again. He'd be forever revealed as a weak reed, the ultimate self-seeking pragmatist, with achievements as few as Malcolm Fraser's, far below the supposedly indolent Howard's. And Rudd? Still making up his mind.
To get his trading scheme into law, Rudd's only course is to hold a double dissolution election and pass it at a joint sitting. But that would mean making his ''great big new tax'' a central issue in the election campaign, having a real fight on his hands and possibly losing some seats.
His trading scheme is itself a compromised and imperfect thing, but it beats total, tail-between-the-legs inaction.
Many of the people who contributed to the defeat of the scheme last year - who got into bed with the climate change ostriches - did so in the belief that its rejection would force Rudd to come back with a better offer. He'd be forced by the pressure of public opinion. How wrong-headed they were. Now we have Rudd seriously contemplating doing nothing about ''the great moral challenge of our time''.
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