Ted Baillieu, Barry O'Farrell and Colin Barnett's state election victories may augur well federally for the Coalition and badly for Labor. There's clearly a huge swag of voters for whom Labor is on the nose, and while no one can be absolutely sure of the degree to which Labor's floundering federally has played a part, nobody sensible says it played no part.

Even the most jaundiced Coalition campaigner is enthused, and fear strikes in the hearts of Labor marginal seat holders.

But former Liberal leader Andrew Peacock used to say that politics is a race for stayers not sprinters, and he was right. Winners know that what counts is not who's in front at the start, or on the turn into the straight, but at the finish.

For Tony Abbott and his team, it's a long time between now and the next scheduled election. In a full federal electoral term there are three years: two for getting things done and then the election year. For Gillard the first year so far doesn't look too good. But they don't say a week is a long time in politics for nothing.

As far-fetched as it may seem now, she could recover. Don't forget that if Kevin Rudd had gone to an election in February 2010 he would have won, and won easily. If you'd said then that he would soon be dumped, people would have thought you were mad. Yet a few months later he was the proverbial dead meat.

The reversal of fortunes in politics can work extremely fast. And it goes both ways. Just look at the fall, rapid rise and fall of Anna Bligh.

The real note of caution for the federal Coalition is that none of the Liberal premiers come across as being a warrior for the right wing of the Liberal Party.

Obviously there is a space in each of the major parties for people with views at the outer edge of the curve. But if these people are seen to dominate the agenda, the public takes that as a message about the party's real flavour.

Australian voters have not shown themselves to be radically left or radically right. They probably follow the bell curve. Voters want balance.

The Coalition's historic win in 1996 offers a valuable lesson. Remember? Yes, John Howard went to the election with the key economic policy of promising to sell Telstra. But it was married with a commitment to put $1 billion into the environment. That may seem like small beer today, but 15 years ago it was a gobsmacker of a policy. Nobody expected that from Howard. It sent a very clear message to voters: ''We will be a government that is not just about a particularly right-wing agenda.''

Over the years I thought Howard started to believe he was both irreplaceable and invincible. In our last conversation before I went to Italy, I was asked, and offered, my view.

First, I said the public was on to him. They initially liked the line: ''I will stay as long as my party wants me.'' But they now realised it really meant: ''You will have to blast me out of this job in a public and bloody battle'', and they did not like it.

Second, he had given licence to some members of the right to continually flag publicly their personal views. Given that it's not good for cabinets to publicly brawl, others were encouraged to brush these off as ''just someone's personal view''. But what goes into the media is what the public use to make assessments. By then my old friends Bob and Mary Stringbag and the luckier Ben and Barbara Beemer saw the government as increasingly right-wing. End of story.

The problem for Abbott is that he has been etched in the public's mind as a warrior for the right within the Liberal Party.

Self-indulgent people who make silly extremist statements only make it harder for Abbott to sell himself and the party as a broad church. He may be there by virtue of the right wing, but he needs to bring anyone like that into line. And pronto.

Howard had Pauline Hanson's Liberal endorsement withdrawn. Abbott pursued One Nation through the courts. So why have federal Liberal MP Cory Bernardi's inflammatory anti-Muslim remarks not cost him his job as Abbott's parliamentary secretary?

If something like that happens again Abbott should not miss the opportunity to stamp his authority and give middle Australia the message: ''I am for all Australians.''

Bob and Mary Stringbag and Ben and Barbara Beemer are watching. They, not the Coalition party room, will decide who next governs Australia.

Don't lurch right, Tony