On Tuesday the enemy forces were a little less defined. They were simply outfitted in blue ties, intent on banishing women's voices from political life and denying them abortion rights.

By Wednesday Ms Gillard had the enemy square in her sights, thanks to the revelation that former Howard government minister Mal Brough had thrown a fund-raising dinner in March with Joe Hockey as honoured guest, the menu so overcooked with sexism and plain idiocy that it'd make an undergraduate waiter spit in the soup.

''Well, this is Tony Abbott's Liberals. This is what they're like,'' she declared.

''Let's go through the pattern of behaviour here. Mr Abbott personally has gone and stood next to signs that describe me in a sexist way. We've had the young Liberals hosting a function where jokes were cracked about the death of my father and now we have Mr Brough and Mr Hockey at a function with this grossly sexist and offensive menu on display. Join the dots.''

She kept returning to the long-ago carbon tax rally where Abbott had stood before protesters' signs declaring her a witch and worse; to a Young Liberals' function where the Sydney radio squawker Alan Jones had claimed her father had died of shame; of Tony Abbott publicly decrying such behaviour but now refusing to disendorse Mr Brough for his infamous luncheon carte du jour - although the menu's provenance is unclear.

It amounted to a pattern of behaviour that, should the sexist Mr Abbott become prime minister, would lead to him having Mr Brough beside him as a minister.

Ms Gillard has been searching for a breakthrough theme for some time now. Nothing seemed to have worked since her celebrated misogyny speech in Parliament last year.

Now, with Kevin Rudd and his apparent ease in communicating rampant on the streets and turning the heads of some of her desperate MPs, Ms Gillard has returned to Abbott's alleged misogyny, clearly hoping it will revive her fortunes.

Ms Gillard and her office have also taken steps to control not just the message, but the delivery of it. On Monday, as she treated families to a ''Give a Gonski'' garden party at Kirribilli House, photographers and TV crews were invited to record the merry scene. Reporters with unpleasant questions were shut out.

On Tuesday, delivering her sermon about dreadful men in blue ties, photographers and TV crews were banished and only those bearing notebooks were allowed in.

Let the words speak for themselves, but the PM's office would control the pictures, thank you. Ms Gillard would be filmed with a cheer squad of young women in T-shirts bearing the words ''Women for Gillard'' behind her.

It was directly from the playbook of Barack Obama's campaign. It had a similar fund-raising movement called Women for Obama.

Whether it is getting a smidgen late to control Ms Gillard's political and increasingly personal message remains to be seen. But she is giving it her best shot. And her easiest shot is right at Tony Abbott. If there was an unfortunate ricochet that clobbered another man in a blue tie, a fellow named Kevin, well … collateral damage is sometimes the price of political battle.