It all goes well ... until it doesn't.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
There was the Prime Minister sailing along nicely - a bit of money for mental health care in a marginal seat in Tasmania; a warm welcome at a bowls club (which got more money).
And a lovely cheese tasting at a dairy products place.
And then: bump, the script gets ripped up.
How could he know that the very first high commissioner to Solomon Islands (a nation currently cuddling up to communist China) was there?
The accusation is that this unfortunate friendship - perhaps a dangerous one for Australia - happened on Mr M's watch, and the former diplomat wanted to give him his trenchant thoughts.
Trevor Sofield was just a voter in the seat who happened to be out for a bit of a jaunt. He saw Scott Morrison and decided to give him a piece of his mind - politely, as is the way of diplomats.
Mr Sofield said he was manhandled. He never got to meet the Prime Minister - but the row will, no doubt, linger.
"What sort of election and what sort of country have we got when a personal citizen can't talk to a Prime Minister who is meant to be on a goodwill visit to meet the electorate - and I'm one of them - and denied the opportunity?" Mr Sofield asked, still shaking.
And it had all gone so smoothly until then.
There was a warming human moment earlier. Politicians mixed nicely with voters.
When the Liberal candidate in the Tasmanian marginal electorate of Bass entered the bear pit of media lenses and barking journos in Launceston, her eyes were moist.
"I had a panic attack when I came in," Bridget Archer said, and she clearly meant it. You could see the fear in her eyes.
It would be cynical to say that this was just because the seat of Bass see-saws between Labor and Liberal in every election - with the next saw due to be to the left, tipping her back into the political wilderness.
But then the sitting MP told of her mental trauma, about how her step sister had died by suicide, and it was clear that the candidate was being human.
It was an "emotional day" for her as she stood beside the Prime Minister while he promised $55 million in a partnership with the Tasmanian government for mental health services.
Mr Morrison was doing his best to stop her getting tipped off the see-saw. Later, the two stood together when they promised the Beauty Point Bowls Club $180,000 to create an all-weather green.
And oddly - or perhaps not oddly - in the bowls club, the Prime Minister suddenly looked more like a human being than a politician on automatic pilot. He was among his people.
The area needs the money. It needs a strong economy.
"We've got nothing in this area," club president Mick Savage said (though not publicly to ScoMo). "There's no football club, no netball club. There's nothing for people to do but come to the bowls.
"We haven't even got a supermarket anymore."
Who did he blame? "It's just the way things are," he said.
READ MORE:
Mr Morrison no doubt hopes that the voters of Bass won't blame him, and that they will accept his message that the other lot would be worse.
When he won in 2019, he said it was a "miracle".
He has hopes this time. "I pray every day. That's been my practice," Mr Morrison said on Thursday morning.
And then came the intervention - diplomatic, from Mr Sofield, rather than divine.
- Lifeline: 13 11 14
