Julia Gillard needs a pivotal moment.
Perhaps somewhere in the ugliness caught in those extraordinary pictures of yesterday's melee outside a Canberra restaurant, she might get it.
In her year and a half as Prime Minister, Gillard's political stocks have been pounded time and again.
Right from the issue around her legitimacy over the way she took the job from Kevin Rudd, through controversies, blunders, bad luck and the Tony Abbott-led Opposition brutal in prosecuting every political opportunity, it has never let up.
As Labor MPs prepare for Parliament's return the week after next, the party's abysmal polling last year makes thoughts of Labor winning the next election seem like fantasy. More real is the question of its survival as a major party.
Labor's sub 30 per cent primary vote did edge up for a while in the second half of last year, but the movements were too small to bring it anywhere near the 40 per cent party strategists once regarded as necessary to be competitive at an election.
If this year's early polls are bad for Labor, or even ambiguous, the party will inevitably be drawn to dumping Gillard and probably reinstating Kevin Rudd.
Then Gillard's supporters will likely claim Australians never got to know "the person"; that we were wrong to judge her as dishonest over the carbon plan and pokies — she could only do what Parliament would let her do — and that for all the media attention, the "real Julia" somehow never made it through.
Then again, perhaps in those few intense moments of fuss yesterday afternoon, it did.
Just before Gillard's federal police bodyguards made that extraordinary rush with her to the prime minister's limo, the unfathomable laws chance happened to put a TV camera right on the spot as the PM and her security leader discussed how they were going to handle the threat.
The Nine Network's Mark Jessop says he was "pretty happy when (security) locked those doors" to the Lobby restaurant, stranding outside several of his competitors, but leaving him and a camera from Sky inside the venue with Gillard, Tony Abbott and guests.
Gillard's supporters wouldn't mind that Jessop stayed either, because he recorded a minute or two in which they no doubt believe the real Julia was right there and highly visible.
As she mixed with guests, her security point person approached her with two blemishes on his suit jacket from the growing protest outside.
"You right there, Humphrey," she quipped. "You been in the wars."
Humphrey (full name unknown, because we can't know the full names of such people) was way too exercised by the realisation that his "principal" (security jargon for the person in need of protection) was fast becoming trapped.
He quietly but bluntly told the PM that the "situation is deteriorating". They needed to leave quickly.
He turned to go, but was stopped in his tracks by Julia Gillard's next comment.
"And what about Mr Abbott. Where have we got him?"
At that point Humphrey was utterly betrayed by his expression. He did NOT say "Why would I care about Tony Abbott. He's not my principal", but the line would have been quite at home as a subtitle across the bottom of frame.
As Mark Jessop observes, Humphrey "had no idea" Abbott was in the equation until that instant.
Nor did Tony Abbott. Gillard can also been seen in the footage approaching the man who has so effectively torn apart her first 18 months as PM and letting him know that both of them needed to leave quickly. Right or wrong, Abbott was about to be accused of comments that provoked the very protest that was now trapping them.
"So they would like us to go straight away?" Abbott lifts his eyebrows, slightly bemused, though you could hardly blame him. Gillard was organising his security and it was all going to be on national television very soon afterwards.
Different people will interpret these few moments in very different ways, but it's likely many will see Gillard as calm, thoughtful and gracious, especially in remembering her number one political enemy (No. 2 depending on how you rate Kevin Rudd?).
The images — like a beach landing in a war movie — then move headlong into that astonishing security push to get the now two principals to the car.
There's nothing calm, thoughtful or the least bit gracious at this point, but it's hard not to feel some sympathy for the PM.
Helpless in a security huddle, the stumble, the lost shoe, shoved into her car — a metaphor for the woeful run she's had since June 2010.
For all the media attention since, it's not likely those few minutes alone will turn Gillard's fortunes.
Though for voters still looking for reasons to like their PM, there were a few in Canberra yesterday afternoon.
Tim Lester is online political editor for the National Times
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