Thank God for the Crikey/Media Monitors Tuesday Top 20! It’s about the only measure that gives John Howard a decent lead over Kevin Rudd.

Not that a high ranking is necessarily a sign of political health. The gormless Peter McGauran comes in at Number Three for the week of August 28-September 3, thanks to equine flu. Malcolm Turnbull is Number Four, thanks to the Geoffrey Cousins parasite.

TW

Move

Type

Politician

Press

Radio

TV

Internet

Total

1

0

Federal

John Howard

1,492

6,820

3,510

6,973

18,795

2

0

Federal

Kevin Rudd

1,152

5,870

2,465

4,544

14,031

3

6

Federal

Peter McGauran

256

2,503

1,444

1,175

5,378

4

4

Federal

Malcolm Turnbull

286

2,222

473

1,095

4,076

5

2

State

Peter Beattie

283

826

513

1,679

3,301

6

-1

Federal

Peter Costello

239

269

152

2,169

2,829

7

-1

State

Morris Iemma

162

966

595

949

2,672

8

4

Federal

Julia Gillard

214

1,135

413

692

2,454

9

16

State

John Watkins

59

1,100

645

428

2,232

10

11

Federal

Peter Garrett

189

1,214

302

503

2,208

11

20

Federal

Joe Hockey

158

808

633

516

2,115

12

5

Federal

Brendan Nelson

72

1,051

350

393

1,866

13

-9

Federal

Tony Abbott

148

425

80

1,071

1,724

14

-4

State

John Brumby

146

489

163

851

1,649

15

5

State

Paul Lennon

110

953

249

308

1,620

16

12

State

Steve Bracks

113

652

276

402

1,443

17

-14

Federal

Kevin Andrews

115

197

1

1,076

1,389

18

-7

Federal

Alexander Downer

101

78

125

1,022

1,326

19

-6

Federal

Mal Brough

70

348

5

608

1,031

20

-5

Federal

Mark Vaile

45

161

66

510

782

The PM’s position on the Talkback Chart, however, seems under threat. The opposition leader is at Number One for the third week in a row. The PM has to make do with being Number Two, followed by a posse of premiers – mainly copping brickbats.

Rank

Politician

Talkback

1

Kevin Rudd

601

2

John Howard

423

3

Julia Gillard

150

4

Paul Lennon

150

5

Morris Iemma

145

And there’s some further comfort for the PM. He’s shifty, he should have gone – but he scored many more media mentions last week than another devious moron:

Princess Diana

79

987

1,814

390

3,270