I can see how a Bishop-Turnbull ticket would be somewhat more palatable to the red neck right, however its still clearly not the most electable option, the smartest guy in the room is Malcolm.
Smart? Hardly. He made a complete hash of his previous attempt to lead the party. Have you forgotten the mess of the Godwin Grech affair? Went off half cocked demanding the PM's resignation and ended up looking a complete fool.
Then he ignored the wishes of the majority of his party and went to bed with Labor over an ETS. That was what finally saw him beaten by TA.
How is he going to go when attacked by Labor on the justifiable basis that in the past he has championed either a carbon tax or an ETS, yet now cannot support that position because the party wouldn't have a bar of it?
And how are the internal politics of the Coalition going to go when he wants gay marriage and the conservative Right regard that as their worst nightmare?
There is considerable irony in the fact that the two people bringing the spill motion are hard Right conservatives.
They seemed to assume the result would not include Mr Turnbull.
As drsmith has pointed out today, his political instinct seems to have improved little as he made public his desire for as much time as possible to shore up support before committing to challenging. Even the fact that TA responded by moving the meeting forward to Monday will further exacerbate the tension and adverse effects of whatever the outcome is. MT should have just shut up until after the result of the secret ballot.
It seems to me that many people are taking Mr Turnbull's urbane and articulate demeanour, his somewhat regal presence and well modulated voice, as being representative of political astuteness and capacity to fix all that is so deeply wrong with his party.
However, just as the electorate largely declines to accept the reality of the need to pull in the fiscal horns, they might well equally be prepared to be deluded by charm.