Pauline Hanson's always been a tool. Now she can be a political one.

Following on from last week's post about the intelligence spectrum, this week has produced publicity of two politicians from opposite ends of it.

From the smart end is Kevin Rudd. Mr Rudd is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and is highly articulate. One need only listen to him speak to know that he does not watch Big Brother. He has been one of my favourites for a few years and will make a very good Labor leader.

As a leader and representative of Australia he would be a liar. He would represent Australians as intelligent, thoughtful people who know things that are not on Sixty Minutes. No football, meat pies, domestic violence or thuggish behaviour overseas in the Rudd camp.

Kevin Rudd is in no way representative of the brain-dead outer suburbs clog who decide elections.

Part of Bush's success is that he connects with ordinary (Nothing special) Americans who say in a kind of slack jawed drawl that he's "A regular guy just like us". In other words, he is a dolt. Heaven forbid the most powerful person in the world would actually be a clever guy.

And heaven forbid that the leader of a country in the Asia Pacific might actually be fluent in an Asian language.

Much more representative of Kath and Kim is Pauline Hanson, who fights the good fight in the dumb corner. (Actually smart is more of a corner, dumb is more like the whole rest of the room.)

It isn't dumb that she raises concerns about multiculturalism, Mark Steyn does that and he's an intelligent man. I do it, and I manage to tie my shoe-laces most days.

What is dumb is that she will not present any strong, well thought out arguments. She doesn't like Africans because they're diseased? I understand health checks are performed on new arrivals. Why doesn't she just say that they smell bad and make irritating "Eep, Eep" noises like monkeys?

I like Africans. The ones that have moved to the north eastern suburbs appear to be fitting in as well as they're allowed to. I applaud the marked drop of white homeboys on the o-bahn. They can't compete against the real Black travelling with us now and they have generally stopped trying. I also like the perspective they bring, as many are refugees. They have horror stories that make the general suburban bitch about not having the latest Commodore look as small as it is.

The comments she makes about Muslims are harder to criticise, I'd just sooner hear them from Mark Steyn. I've at least got the confidence that Steyn has done his homework.

Hanson means trouble because the media will make her the face of any sentiment that questions any kind of racial policy, or anybody who takes less than a totally permissive attitude with Aboriginal affairs.

Kevin Rudd is a smart guy. If there is a Hanson factor to be used he will use it to strip votes away from Howard. (Why should Joe Prole vote for a clever man who pretends to be dumb when he can have the real thing?).

If he wants their second preference though, he will need to exercise the kind of cunning that Labor hasn't seen since the days of Keating. He needs to quell the urge of the Left to mock Pauline Hanson's lack of education and poor elocution. There are a lot of traditional Labor voters with those traits.

He may need to give the occasional nod to working-class racism, as Beazley did with his opposition to 457 visas. Already Rudd has said he doesn't want Australia to become "Japan's beach". There is nothing wrong with Japanese tourists other than the colour of their skin, so we know who that comment was meant for.

Nice.