Ross Fitzgerald has jumped on the “Queensland Council amalgamations to cost Rudd the election” bandwagon, portentously warning that “the state that was supposed to deliver victory for Rudd Labor could help end the dream”.

Meanwhile, Labor candidates are betraying their nerves in the face of the PM’s latest tactic in the focus group driven War On The States.

To borrow a phrase from Rudd’s old boss, Wayne Goss, they should all probably take a cold shower.

The Howard plebiscites will probably never go ahead. Electoral law expert Dr Graeme Orr points out that legislation would be required for several reasons, and Peter Beattie has already called Howard’s bluff by passing the amalgamations and warning Councils that go ahead with a poll that they will be sacked.

In any case, behind all the sound and fury of the protests and the PM’s latest tactic, there’s evidence that the reforms are not the dire political doom that everyone seems to assume.

Much of the initial protest was driven by Western Queensland Councils but they have now been spared from amalgamation by the Independent Commission. The biggest remaining flash point is Noosa.

Noosa, of course, is in the safe Liberal seat of Fairfax where Alex Somlyay sits on a 12.4% margin. The most recent Newspoll state by state aggregate polling  shows Labor on a 11% swing in the Sunshine State. On those figures, fourteen seats would fall, but Somlyay would hold on. That’s an aggregate of polling from Newspoll up to July, and Labor sources believe the actual swing in Queensland is closer to somewhere between 7 and 9%, which would potentially see twelve seats in play. Labor isn’t expecting to win twelve, and Fairfax has never been on their radar.

Outside Noosa, only Port Douglas and Redcliffe have shown real signs of citizen anger. So there may be some worries for Labor in Petrie and Leichhardt.

But Peter Beattie knows something Howard doesn’t. His appearance on Lateline on Wednesday night contained a significant mention of “state research”.

This wasn’t pursued by Tony Jones, but Beattie’s demeanour should have been enough to demonstrate that he knows that the discontent over amalgamations is more apparent than real. Joh Bjelke-Petersen could have told John Howard that TV vision of protests doesn’t equate to electoral defeat. Voters in Brisbane (exempt from the changes) aren’t interested, and that’s where Labor has a lot of seats in range, and where the vote is likely to mirror the national swing rather than being influenced by parochial factors.

And Labor sources confirm that Beattie knows that party polls show that many who aren’t nonplussed support the amalgamations — which are designed, after all, to provide better infrastructure and services.

Howard, of course, also risks being drawn further into the quagmire of Coalition state politics. In the state house this week, the Liberal member for Noosa hasn’t been able to decide whether he’s anti-Green or pro-Green, the member for Caloundra has been thinking of running for mayor of the super Sunshine Coast Council, and to top it all off, there are more rumblings of a possible leadership challenge against Dr Bruce Flegg because his colleagues were offended that he put out a press release reflecting on his first year as leader.

The PM may believe that all politics are local, and Mark Textor may think that the election can be run by treating it as 150 by-elections. But it’s worth remembering that local politics is often about taking out the muck.