For all the facetious talk of teams and partnerships, there can be no doubt that we are in the throes of a presidential election campaign.

For the last five weeks, J-Ho and K07 have been at the centre of every media event, policy announcement, press conference, blue-collar barbecue, baptism, funeral and colonoscopy in the country.

They have sidelined ministers and overshadowed shadow ministers. They have waxed poetic about their teams and then proceeded to hog the ball. In this campaign, there is no such thing as a political party. As Rudd might say, the buck stops with the leaders. Dead in its tracks.

There can be no clearer evidence of this than this morning's stage-managed media event at Cairns Private Hospital, where the Prime Minister and his Health Minister, Tony 'Attack-Dog' Abbott, toured the facility, made a minor announcement, and set the scene for this afternoon's announcement of their $248.4 million health policy.

From the moment they entered the building, these teammates, it was effectively a one-man show. Howard ploughed through staff and patients with his customary meet-everyone-at-any-cost zeal, while Abbott followed, not petulantly but close enough, bringing up the rear.

And so we set off, a ragtag caravan of minders, medicos and media. We very nearly weren't allowed (the hospital corridors were too small, we were too many), but the absurdity of a media event without media was too difficult to ignore.

In any case, the deeper our incursion into the facility, the further behind Tony Abbott fell. He strolled along at what was, compared to his boss, a resolutely leisurely pace, shaking a couple of hands here and there, asking random doctors what machine they were on, and generally whiling away the time with no one there to bother him.

Except me.

And so it was that your humble correspondent sidled up to the lonely-looking minister and ask him what it was like to be second best.

"How does it feel to rock up and be completely ignored?" I asked after introducing myself. "Wandering along without anyone paying you a single scrap of attention?"

"The scrum always follows the star," Abbott conceded. "On a few occasions you're the star yourself, but more often you've just got to follow the real star."

"You're a star!" exclaimed a boom operator, walking a little way ahead of us.

"Put it this way," shot back Abbott. "If I'm a star, he's a constellation."

A constellation, maybe, but one trying very hard to fashion himself as a star like any other.

With Kev still leading John-o by seven points as preferred prime minister (new numbers are to be released tomorrow, though any variations are likely to be negligible), and with the acknowledgement earlier this year that Howard would hand over the reigns to Peter Costello were he to win a fifth term, Howard has been forced by circumstance to emphasise the credentials of his team. It is not in his best interest to have a presidential election on his hands.

By contrast, it is in Labor's best interest to make this remaining week as leader-centric as it possibly can. Not only do they want to tap into Rudd's popularity relative to Howard's, but they want to avoid too much scrutiny of their very scrutinisable front bench.

While they have readily, even eagerly, taken part in the various portfolio debates of this campaign, this has had more to do with what they perceive to be the strength of their policies than the personalities of the players. Indeed, these debates have been relatively colourless, personality-free zones.

There can be no doubt that Labor is getting its way when it comes to the form the election has taken. Given the media's own predilection towards personality politics and celebrity-worship, this has not been difficult.

Images of the leaders, who are instantly recognisable, will evoke more to more people, and will sell better, than images of, say, the minister and shadow minister for some obscure portfolio. Only a handful of celebrity ministers ever get within a stone's throw of a camera lens.

Labor has been able to frame the election, to their benefit, as a competition between two men. For them, from the moment they launched the Kevin 07 website earlier this year, it has been a truly presidential election. The Liberals' attempts to frame the election as competition between two teams are constantly being thwarted by the manner in which the media has represented the proceedings.

As Tony Abbott told me: "The media is a very interesting beast."

We came to the door of the room where this morning's announcement was to be made.

"Would you like to go in?" a press secretary asked. "The Prime Minister is coming."

Abbott looked around. There was no one to meet him. The room was empty.

"No," he said. "I'll just...wait."

He stood in silence and listened to the sound of no one taking pictures of him.