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Illustration: John Spooner

In trendy cafes across the nation people are talking about Malcolm Turnbull. They talk mostly in whispers, eyes darting round the room, palms sweating. "I'd do it for Malcolm," the hipsters confess.

Should Turnbull become prime minister - a scenario that even after Monday's spill is poised somewhere between dead certain and entirely likely - these once diehard lefties seem prepared to do what was previously unthinkable: defect, turn, bat for the other team. Vote 1 for the Liberal Party.

I've heard the sentiment expressed frequently during the past week, and the polls are saying it too; progressives adore Turnbull, conservatives do not. For years left-leaning voters have harboured a fantasy of flipping Turnbull to lead the ALP, figuring it wasn't so far-fetched given he had briefly contemplated joining the party when he was young. That fantasy shelved, these voters now contemplate flipping themselves: embracing the man, even as they throw a metaphorical paper bag over his party.

In this cynical age, how can one man inspire such messianic faith? Many people want to believe Turnbull can steer the Coalition back to the political centre. And it's true the Liberals are a broad church. But unlike Labor which has largely purged its caucus of ideologues and replaced them with pragmatic careerists the Coalition has a bedrock of true believers. People who truly believe global warming is a myth, for instance. And that wealth always trickles down.

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In the progressives' wet dream Turnbull rides in as a saviour. He not only abolishes knights and dames but ushers in the republic. He not only exposes the climate sceptics, but restores the price on carbon. Not only repudiates the idea that women are responsible for the household ironing, but introduces same-sex marriage. Not only arrests the march to a surveillance state, but guarantees for evermore our freedom to illegally download Game of Thrones- a reference to which he need never drop into his public statements because in contrast to the Prime Minister, noone would doubt Malcolm's pop culture cred.

To some extent, Turnbull's mystique is bound up with his background. The self-made man brought up by a single father in a rented flat; who overcame loss and tragedy to become a Rhodes scholar, journalist, corporate lawyer, investment banker and politician; who is so ruggedly urbane he even boasts the late art critic Robert Hughes as an in-law; who has a touch of Gatsby, projecting a restless hunger for affirmation despite his Point Piper mansion with its breathtaking harbour view.

Most intriguing about the faith in Turnbull is that it rests on a paradox. He seems to be popular despite even because of the various contradictions he's been forced to straddle, especially since losing the Liberal leadership in 2009.

Climate change is the big one, having declared before he was ousted: "I will not lead a party that is not as committed to effective action on climate change as I am." During the intervening years it became apparent that this declaration is no longer sacrosanct. This week he reportedly confirmed that if elected leader he would not change the Coalition's climate change policy unless the world's major polluters changed theirs.

See more here:
Turnbull: why the left is so in love with him