Then there's Tony Abbott - the great 'People Skills' himself, whose defiance of political orthodoxy is beginning to rival Mr Turnbull's own.What other leadership candidate would have had the magnificence, on Sunday, to ignore not just one, and not even two, but three central tenets of the political picture opportunity?
"Don't wear silly hats" has been defied before.
"Don't wear budgie smugglers" has also been defied, though with tragic results for the former NSW Liberal leader Peter Debnam, whose photoshoot in the briefest of swimming costumes heralded his imminent failure at the polls in 2007.
"If you have an extremely hairy back, for God's sake keep your shirt on" is not so much an accepted political maxim as an article of common sense, but it is sage advice nonetheless.
And yet: There was People Skills on Sunday, prancing about in the shallows wearing naught but a scrap of lycra, a lifesaver's cap and a fascinatingly goatish pelt.