Oh looky! Has it been a month already?

Are you loving it? Have the people in suits convinced you to vote for them yet?

Or do you need another month of their “key messaging”?

Brace yourselves because, with polls showing Labor and the Coalition in a mid-campaign dead heat, there are clear signs we're in for a dramatic escalation of rhetoric and divergence from traditional campaigning measures.

And it looks like the Coalition - having squandered their humungous lead in the polls since replacing PM Abbott with PM Turnbull - has been spooked into moving first.

Tellingly the incumbents have changed their language from repetitive yet vaguely coherent to outright hysterical.

Labor, the government has shrilly warned, isn't just running a campaign for high office, they are waging a "war"  against decent, god-fearing Australians everywhere.

It's a real war with “casualties” and “bullets”.

In just one speech last Thursday, Treasurer Scott Morrison used the word “war” a machine gun-like 14 times to describe the Opposition's policy platform.

“The reality is that Bill Shorten has declared a war on business and the first casualties are jobs,” Morrison told a terrified press pack.

“It's a war on growth, it's a war on capital, it's a war on mums and dads who just want to invest in a property to ensure their betterment over into their retirement or whatever their purpose is.”

Yes, the Australian Labor Party, Mr Morrison claims, “is using tax as bullets” against “mums and dads” in a “war” with “casualties”.

 Seriously.

Cringingly, the Treasurer made these lurid comments on the very day a repatriation ceremony was held in Sydney for Australian soldiers and dependants who'd been buried in military cemeteries in Malaysia and Singapore since the Vietnam War.

The Vietnam Veterans Association couldn't believe Mr Morrison's language.

“Tasteless in the extreme” is how actual former warriors described it.

Did Morrison care? Not at all. Neither it seems, did the Prime Minister.

Mr Turnbull promptly echoed his treasurer by peppering his pronouncements over the weekend with talk of war and casualties.

So what happens now? With the Coalition on def-con 1, where can Labor go?

If the ALP were smart they'd retaliate with murderous metaphors. Imagine the cut-through Bill Shorten might gain with an escalation of his language:

“Clearly Mr Turnbull wants to take a rusty, gore-caked machete to Medicare and hack away at the tendons and muscle tissue that holds society together.”

Or:

“Scott Morrison's only plan is for a widespread taxation bloodbath that will leave injured and traumatised Australians begging for mercy.”

Or:

“Look, Australians can see that the Coalition's policies are designed to abduct working mums and dads, tie them to a tree, taser them, stab them, shoot them, throw rocks at them, set them on fire and punch them.”

That'd show Major-General Morrison who's in charge when it comes to fear-mongering!

But there's a risk such a salvo would only prompt the Coalition to respond with the big kahuna of political rhetoric -- alien invasion:

“Mr Shorten and his team want to sell out working Australians to the Xartan mothership that is presently hiding on the other side of the moon.”

Or:

“If elected, Labor will have no choice but to form an alliance with the Greens,  who are in cahoots with Lord Xartan. And the first thing a Labor-Greens-Xartan government will do is vaporise planet Earth.”

It sounds silly but then again so does the notion of a war on Australian mums and dads with tax as bullets and businesses as casualties.

Yep, it's hard to believe there's a whole month left to go. But the language and tone of our political “debate” isn't the only thing that's likely to get weird as July 2 edges ever closer.

Protective clothing: Media monitoring has already revealed the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader are locked in a tussle over who can wear the most items of hi-vis clothing and hard hats on any given day.

Expect this struggle to intensify. In the coming weeks both leaders will try to be the first to develop a hi-vis tie.

I understand Mr Shorten's contacts in the CFMEU are also busily designing a hard hat with an in-built orange flashing light.

Meanwhile Mr Turnbull's office is working on a little speaker that goes beep-beep-beep-beep whenever he steps backwards, just like a real reversing truck on a construction site.

Advertising: We entered a new phase this week when Malcolm Turnbull unveiled new campaign ads in which he reflects on his working class childhood.

The intimate, sepia-steeped TVCs show Mr Turnbull as a boy battling the odds with his single dad, who was a battler, and how his dad's love made him, I dunno ... something.

Anyway it showed how Mr Turnbull was a bit of a battler and certainly not born with $200 million.

And he was raised by a single dad.

Did you know that?

The campaign appears designed to counter Labor's cheap and lazy characterisations of Mr Turnbull as a filthy rich toff who is out of touch with everyday Australians.

So keep your eyes peeled for a new ALP ad that depicts a young Bill Shorten as a loyal and reliable high school prefect who actively supported not one but two school captains through attempts to overthrow them in playground coups.

Street walks: The amount of shopping centre strolls will rise sharply as we get closer to the election - and so will the lengths the leaders will go to on the hustings.

Pretty soon kissing babies won't be enough: Messrs Turnbull and Shorten will need to start pashing pregnant women.

If Mr Shorten does it first you can be sure Mr Turnbull will trump him by dropping to his knees to kiss the bulging belly of a mother with child.

If none of that works, at least he can fall back on jobs and growth and jobs and growth and jobs and growth and jobs ...