It takes a certain confidence for a political leader to wander the streets of the country's most marginal electorate being chummy with locals.
Maybe it's the polls showing he's more popular with voters than the prime minister but Tony Abbott certainly displayed that confidence on Tuesday.
The opposition leader embarked on his second streetwalk in two days, taking up Labor's challenge to mingle with real people rather than hide behind staged election campaign events.
Streetwalks are still somewhat orchestrated but they're unpredictable and can backfire in a flash.
In Corangamite, the Victorian seat held by 0.3 per cent by Labor's Darren Cheeseman, Mr Abbott could safely assume not everybody would like him.
He hit the footpath in Geelong, boldly taking over people's shops, joining their conversations and recruiting their babies for a mandatory happy snap.
"You know what politicians are like on the campaign trail," Mr Abbott joked with Christine Rogers as he posed with her napping four-month old daughter Meg.
So busy he was working the crowd, he forgot to collect his change after buying a copy of the Big Issue from a street vendor, who chased him down.
Mr Abbott's pledge earlier in the day to spend $25 million upgrading the iconic Great Ocean Road impressed Debbie Grinter but the local resident had another reason to back the coalition.
"I think he will win because Kevin Rudd's fake," Ms Grinter told AAP.
Mr Abbott's charm seemed to work on most but danger lurked as a lone but persistent protester dressed as a fish trailed him for most of the day, heckling him about his plans for the Great Barrier Reef.
One local woman wasn't impressed and accused him of "cycling on the job" instead of working.
"To come in here, interfering in my shopping, how dare he after all the sexist comments he's made about women, he's just an appalling candidate," she said, declining to give her name.
At a campaign stop in the nearby Labor-held seat of Corio earlier on Tuesday, Mr Abbott was forced to publicly chastise a Liberal candidate accused of making lewd comments on his website.
But he stopped short of dumping Kevin Baker as the party's candidate for the strong NSW Labor seat of Charlton, despite pressure from Labor to do so.
Mr Abbott was also queried for a second day on the costing details of his generous $5.5 billion a year paid parental leave scheme, offering six months leave at full pay up to a capped annual salary of $150,000.
Uncertainty around its funding is likely to be exploited by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Wednesday, when the two face off in their second leaders' debate in Brisbane.
