A weird thing has happened since Kevin Rudd’s return. He and Tony Abbott are using the same talking points. But they’re working better for Kevin.

Rudd derides Abbott as “Captain Negative”. Abbott complains Rudd spends his time “attacking the Coalition”.

Rudd says Abbott is all slogans and soundbites and he, Rudd, is the guy with the seven-point plan. Abbott says Rudd’s a “fake” with “no substance” and he is the man with the “real solutions”. He even has them written down in a booklet.

In fact both Rudd’s seven-point plan and Abbott’s “real solutions” booklet are pretty light on actual policy detail.

But Abbott’s problem is that if it comes down to a competition about who voters think is negative and more devoid of policy substance, they’ll probably pick him.

For a political attack to work it has to tap into something voters believe – or suspect – is true.

Abbott’s attack on Julia Gillard for being a “liar” worked because he could back it with the “no carbon tax under a government I lead” grab from her interview before the election, obliterating the nuanced difference between a “tax” and a floating price, which she was supporting, through the endless repetition. And his attack on her government for being “chaotic” worked because, at least in political terms, it was often true.

But when Abbott says Rudd is interested in media “stunts” there’s the small pot-and-kettle problem of his own three years of almost daily picture opportunities in fluorescent vests warning of the “unimaginably” dire consequences of the aforementioned tax (which turned out to be a pretty easily imagined one-off cost of living increase of somewhere between 0.4 and 0.7%).

When Abbott says Rudd is too negative and focused on criticising the opposition, it’s hard for voters to forget that he was the most effective and aggressively negative opposition leader in recent times, even if he did start wearing suits and talking about being kinder and gentler as we entered the election year.

And when he says Rudd’s policies have no substance, there’s recent memory of Rudd offering so much policy detail many people prayed he would stop.

And when running that line, Abbott often runs into his own problems with the very next question from a journalist, which on Friday in Brisbane was: “What's your education solution?”

Abbott’s reply: “Our education solution is to stick with the existing system until such time as we are confident that there is an alternative which is both better and affordable.”

Just weeks before an election campaign when asked what his education policy is, that amounts to an opposition leader effectively saying: “I’ll get back to you.”

Meanwhile, just across town, Rudd was busy using the benefits of incumbency and Labor’s improved position in the polls to his advantage.

When Labor appeared headed for a certain landslide defeat it was easy for state governments to cold-shoulder the Gonski school funding reforms that will take effect after the election. But if Labor wins, that course could leave a state seriously disadvantaged.

Which may be why the Queensland premier, Campbell Newman, has suddenly re-engaged in a detailed Gonski negotiation – somewhat undermining the contention of Abbott and his education spokesman, Christopher Pyne, that it is really a funding cut in disguise.

The Coalition was always holding back its most important policies until the election campaign, as oppositions often do. And its senior strategists are saying they just need to hold the line and voters will figure out all the things not to like about Kevin, which they might.

Especially when they keep getting helpful hints from the Coalition itself that Rudd is arrogant and self-centred, or as Abbott put it Friday “the ultimate celebrity politician”.

But then, when they are asked, the voters think Abbott is both more arrogant and more superficial.

A recent Essential poll found 44% thought Rudd was superficial, compared with 47% who thought Abbott was, and 49% thought Rudd was arrogant, compared with 54% who thought that of Abbott.

In fact Rudd scored better on almost every measure, seen as more intelligent, more visionary, more capable, better in a crisis and less narrow-minded.

Which is why there are some in the Coalition now saying privately that their tactics may need to change.

But that is hard to do when a party is pretty much locked into a small-target strategy and a campaign based on the assumption that its opponent’s weaknesses would continue to be the dominant issue.