Steve Martin doesn't look like a man who is feeling the pressure as his election campaign gets into gear.
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But the fresh-faced Liberal candidate for the seat of Indi carries the hopes of the whole of the Victorian Liberal Party on his shoulders, with the vast regional electorate the best, maybe the only, hope of the Coalition picking up a seat in the state in this election.
Even Liberal optimists concede that this campaign is going to be challenging for their party in Victoria.
The drubbing they received from Daniel Andrews' Labor government in November's state election starkly illustrated the damage done to the Liberal brand after the internal turmoil that swept Malcolm Turnbull from the leadership three months earlier.
Compounding Liberal woes, a redistribution of federal electoral boundaries last year made life even harder for several of the party's MPs who saw their margins over the Labor rivals reduced or even wiped out.
Liberal insiders fear the loss of up to six seats Victorian seats if things go badly in the coming weeks and that sense of danger has cast the state into an unfamiliar role; a genuine battleground where the fate of the nation's leadership could be decided.
Labor, meantime, has no intention of messing with the formula that was so successful in November and Mr Andrews, and his 'getting things done' brand will be used extensively to campaign for a Bill Shorten victory in the coming weeks.
But don't expect the ALP's Victorian machine to shy away from the rough stuff. Labor considers the Prime Minister a major liability to his party in Victoria and the opposition intends to exploit it, while stoking voter anger at the ejection of Malcolm Turnbull.
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Labor did not respond to requests for comment for this article.
Liberal planners, surveying the strategic circumstances, have plumped for a generally defensive posture aimed at repulsing Labor and Greens raids on conservative-held territory rather than attempting to capture a lot of new ground.
So we should expect to see a Liberal campaign in Victoria that talks more about Bill Shorten and Labor's tax reform than about Scott Morrison.
The onslaught on Mr Shorten will be complemented by hyper-localised efforts in individual seats, leaning on the profiles and records of the Liberal local members.
"The federal election is a referendum on tax," Liberal State Director Simon Frost said.
"The Morrison Liberal government has a plan for lower simpler taxes.
"Bill Shorten wants to his Australians with $200 billion in new and increased taxes.
"On housing, electricity, retirees, investments, super and even family businesses."
But the Liberals are on the attack in some places.
Victoria was the only state where the Coalition picked up a seat from Labor in the 2016 election, and the party believes it has two chances of gaining ground again this year; Indi and MacNamara, the inner Melbourne seat formerly known as Melbourne Ports where the retirement of Labor veteran Michael Danby has raised both Liberal and Greens hopes.
But Indi, where the retirement of popular independent Cathy McGowan, leaves the traditionally conservative seat up for grabs and the Liberals believe that Mr Martin, a 40-year-old engineer who lives in Wodonga, is the man to bring them some cheer. The trick in Indi might be to filter out the background noise from the rest of the state and use that local-first formula for success coming from head office.
"I'm just focused on trying to do what I can to make my case in the electorate," Mr Martin said.
"My impression is that there are a lot of undecided voters out there and I'm out there presenting what I think are a pretty strong set of achievements."
Mr Martin, who needs a 5 per cent swing to take the seat, knows the statewide polls are not good, and some recent ones have been ghastly, but says there is no sense that people in Indi have given up on this government. "I find that people are willing, at least on a personal level, to give me a chance to demonstrate what I'm all about and will give me a hearing," Mr Martin said.
"I certainly don't get the impression that they have crossed any of the candidates off."