Besieged federal Liberal Leader Sussan Ley’s quiet SA appearance has Mike Smithson warning locals can fight Labor on their point-of-difference female leader. But only if their national counterparts stay away.

SA Liberals must be looking nervously at leadership tensions within their federal ranks as we dive headlong into the election campaign.

Sussan Ley is a “dead woman walking” if the most informed commentators are getting the correct information from their political contacts leaking at the front line.

The mere fact that Angus Taylor and Andrew Hastie are all but nominating themselves to fill the position before it’s on offer can only be regarded as both being poised over Ley’s political coffin with a hammer and one last nail.

It will be a damaging look from a leadership gender perspective.

Ley was widely touted as a breath of fresh air, being the first woman in federal history to lead the Liberals and the coalition after the disastrous loss at last year’s federal election.

With it now blatantly obvious she won’t even survive her first 12 months in the top job, the Libs will emerge as a desperate rabble defaulting to the old boys’ club.

Still, some see her surviving, but that’s more a case of blind faith than pragmatism.

How things can drastically change in a couple of weeks.

Less than a fortnight ago Ley snuck into SA for a local campaign appearance which included a visit to the Adelaide Holocaust Museum for a meeting with Jewish community leader Norman Schueler.

It was without fanfare and in the company of loyal Liberal foot soldier Senator Anne........

© InDaily