Politics is a funny old game in which the smiles can be forced and the loyalties, too loudly professed.
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Many crave personal validation, their competitive egos propelling them ever upwards unburdened by policy depth or philosophical commitment.
Some reach the very top and go on to do not much of consequence. Rarely do they leave on their own terms.
Occasionally, though, there are exceptions, actual reformers. Politicians with purpose, even heart.
Bill Shorten wanted to be one of these. His departure brings a reassessment of his contribution, and I would argue, invites a reflection on the mediation of our politics.
An examination that exposes the cynicism normalised by political coverage itself.
By his own admission, Shorten has seen extraordinary highs and lows in his 17 years in federal politics. Yet, he insists, there isn't a single day he would "hand back".
Other reviews are less uniformly effervescent, citing his mover-and-shaker role in Labor's disastrous leadership changes between 2007 and 2013.
They note, too, that as leader in 2019, he overreached, snatching defeat from the jaws of a certain Labor victory.
However, if this was a political sin, it was hardly a moral one. Nor his alone.
When he entered the Federal Parliament in the 2007 "Ruddslide", it was amid high expectations. Some talked of a future Labor leader (which turned out to be true) and there was even the odd overblown parallel with Bob Hawke (which wasn't).
Perhaps it is unsurprising that in all that "destiny" stuff, he got a little ahead of himself.
But then who, once in their 50s could not look back and cringe privately at the impatience that that fuelled early career manoeuvrings.
I couldn't help thinking about the media's formative role in our political norms also as I listened to radio news bulletins on Thursday from reporters who weren't around at the time, dismissively reducing Shorten's political career to two election "losses" in 2016 and 2019.
It was a depiction that obscured rather than explained. In fact, Labor did surprising well in 2016, clawing back most of the seat losses from its 2013 shellacking. Nobody expected that.
Replacing a first term federal government hadn't occurred since 1932.
Shorten did so well that the thumping Coalition majority secured by Abbott in 2013 was all but wiped out.
In hindsight, Turnbull's premiership was doomed from that moment. The moderate had only ever been installed by the hardline Dutton faction because he was more saleable to voters.
With their near-death experience, that rationale dissolved. The dominant right caucus revoked Turnbull's license to actively lead from that point.
So, Shorten had nearly won the unwinnable election and then lost the losable.
That he went down in 2019 for being too expansive and honest about policy is as much a reflection on voters and a corrosive media as it is on the former leader.
Policy frankness is all too rare in our politics and should be lauded. It does not serve the electorate's interests for media to simply parrot the reductive rules of exchange which state that reforms should be modest (and remain hidden) despite the scale of problems needing attention.
Neither does it serve an active dynamic polity to vilify those who dare to mount arguments, take voters into their confidence and seek a more genuine electoral mandate.
When Shorten came into Parliament, Rudd was under pressure to find a frontbench spot for him. Like Hawke in 1980, Shorten would not have to wait for a term before frontbench duties.
But Rudd was wary and gave him the most junior role going - parliamentary secretary for disabilities and children's services.
If this was meant to marginalise, Shorten saw it differently, becoming hyper-productive in the area and championing the earliest iterations of what would later become the most transformative socio-economic reform since Medicare, the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
Under Anthony Albanese's prime ministership, Shorten again was out of favour and took up the challenge of reforming the NDIS and threw himself into it fully.
Again, this commitment to policy and the hard work of consultation, stakeholder management, and service was evident.
At 57, and under pressure from the faceless also-rans of the Victorian ALP, Shorten has chosen to parlay his considerable expertise into a new area of public service - higher education - for which he will be well remunerated.
But to reduce his career to election losses not only misses his substantive achievements, but dishonours the unusually frank way he tried to engage in electoral politics.
When the brilliant (and smart) NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo was asked at a press conference if his team's 2023 season was a failure, he hit back: "Oh my god, you asked me the same question last year, Eric. OK, do you get a promotion every year? In your job? No? Right, so every year you work is a failure? Yes or no? No."
Exactly.
Given what we got with Morrison, was the 2019 election loss really Shorten's miscalculation, or was it ours?
- Mark Kenny is The Canberra Times' political analyst and a professor at the ANU's Australian Studies Institute. He hosts the Democracy Sausage podcast.
