It’s almost unimaginable that Tony Abbott should be in this much polling strife this early in his career, but today’s Australian shows him facing a wipeout in the southern states based on analysis of Newspoll this year.

The previous government was rejected because of its incompetence and dishonesty, but this government has been relatively competent and honest.

Their three big promises were to stop the boats, axe the tax and pay back the debt. They’ve performed on two and would be well on their way to three if the Labor opposition and the minor parties would let them implement their election promises.

Labor doesn’t seem to accept that it lost the last election decisively, and not through any sleight of hand, so it has done everything it can to thwart the government.

This includes the hypocrisy of describing measures they don’t like as broken promises, even when they aren’t, and then effectively breaking promises for the government even though they were clear government commitments in the election campaign.

An example of the first is the government’s decision not to fund Gonski beyond 4 years – a position clear in the election campaign. An example of the second is abolition of the Climate Change Authority – again clear.

So, what has gone wrong?

One answer is that the model for what worked has changed. It used to be thought that balancing budgets, paying down debt and gradually leveraging prosperity, at the same time being fairly socially conservative, a la John Howard, was the recipe for electoral success.

Kevin Rudd certainly thought so, running as John Howard lite. Labor’s subsequent performance would also tend to prove this thesis, neglecting this thesis and delivering resounding defeat.

But perhaps it is not so simple.

Certainly one OLO contributor thought that a more radical socialist (progressivist) model could work, and instanced Mayor Bill de Blasio in New York City.

Certainly de Blasio won in a landslide, but as with Rudd, landslides are hard to hold on to. Latest polling shows de Blasio on 49% approval to 36% disapproval, this after winning the election 13 months ago by 72.2%.

de Blasio’s fall from grace is being attributed to his pro-black stance on the recent killings of police officers, and his disapproval is highest amongst white voters. But one would think that probably some of his policies, such as abruptly increasing the minimum wage is having repercussions as it would be putting a lot of stress on business.

While he appears to use a lot of rhetoric in common with Bill Shorten, when voters get to see it up-close they are not so keen. Not only that, but while his rhetoric is egalitarian, he is perceived to represent racial minorities rather than racial majorities. This is alienating the majority.

The truth is that there is no magic bullet, and that politics is more the province of interest than ideology. Ideologies are only tools to justify giving groups what they think they want or need, at least as far as many voters are concered.

The politician that can assemble the largest coalition of interests will win.

So perhaps Abbott’s problems are not with broken promises, imagined or not, or personality, or even so much basic messaging.

Perhaps it is that he hasn’t worked out who he has to appeal to in order to win elections.

Labor certainly has a better idea, although it does this by defining almost everyone as a victim. As de Blasio shows, it is possible to start running out of victims before you get to a majority.

It also means defining a fair proportion of your society as the oppressor, again, not necessarily a vote winning strategy.

Looking at the way votes are sloshing around in Australia it looks to me like the key to Abbott’s success in the next election is the same group that was the key to Howard’s victories – tradesmen, salesmen, retail workers, lower-end white collar workers, agriculturalists, stay at home mums etc all living in the outer suburbs and regional areas.

The non-Greens minor parties tend to be full of these sorts of voters, and some even lodge protest votes via the Greens.

Policies like the baby bonus were targeted squarely at them, and taking them away is bound to alienate them, as is, on the other hand,  paying a disproportionately generous parental leave allowance to wealthy inner suburban dwellers who want time-off from their six figure jobs to have a child.

These people are diminishing in numbers as efficiencies, expanding tertiary education and the compliance industry provide motivation, training and opportunity for their children to move into less onerous white collar positions in the city where the cultures are different.

Which means Abbott probably needs to find a new supplementary constituency to make up the numbers, which I suggest he might actually find amongst the young.

Labor’s failure to balance the books is perhaps the final indignity foisted on younger generations by the boomer generation that has managed Australia to its own benefit over the last 30 years or so.

The boomers expect to enjoy their retirement, paid for by kids now at university.

For these kids their HECS debt will be relatively trivial. It is handling their mum and dad’s government debt that will give them the greatest challenges.

So, before Joe Hockey and his colleagues sit down to work out how they will refashion their budget, they need to first work out who they would like to vote for them.

It might not be pure, but it is how politics works. You only get good policy by appealing to the groups that get a tangible benefit from it. It’s no magic bullet, but it’s basic.