Limp election campaign launch does Anna Bligh no favours • by:Steven Wardill • From:The Courier-Mail • February 20, 2012 12:01AM Yet the backdrop for Anna Bligh's first campaign contribution after her scheduled trip to see the Governor actually demonstrated Labor's weaknesses as much, if not more, than its strengths. The location was Ashgrove State School, where the "Keep Kate" team were blowing up balloons and painting signage in the pink hue Labor incumbent Kate Jones has chosen for her campaign. Labor's aim was to keep the Ashgrove electorate firmly in the forefront of voter's minds as the campaign for the March 24 election began in earnest. They wanted to sow seeds of doubt about the LNP's leadership by demonstrating just how hard they were fighting to retain the inner-western Brisbane seat. The aim was to continue pushing the issue of what happens in the event that the LNP wins but leader Campbell Newman loses Ashgrove. However, the Ashgrove campaign is also a graphic demonstration of the problem Labor has at this election. Jones is campaigning as "a local girl made good", not as a member of the Bligh Government. The Labor brand and Bligh herself are all but invisible amid the pink propaganda. This is not a campaign about winning an election with a positive agenda and a united team. It is about an individual candidate trying to separate herself from the baggage of her political brand. The contrast with Newman's launch could not have been more stark. He appeared at a golf club just a few kilometres away, with LNP candidates used as living cardboard cutouts behind the cameras. It was all about presenting the image of a team with Newman as the front man. While he continued to face questions about the leadership and the detail of his policies are as thin as the paper they are written on, Newman's pitch is strong and consistent. And, in the end, it was Bligh facing the bigger questions about leadership, given the Canberra melodrama that is now poisoning Queensland Labor's campaign. Bligh may have wanted that pink to point to the Ashgrove campaign. But an abattoir may have been a more appropriate backdrop, given this election is shaping as a bloodbath. At least it would have been the right colour: Labor red. .