Spill tactics: Jessica Rudd and Therese Rein join the fray

The family that campaigns together, stays together. And so it's been in the brutal ALP leadership battle, with Kevin Rudd sending forth his wife Therese Rein and daughter Jess Rudd to help drum up "people power" in support of his extraordinary comeback tilt. 

Clearly this is a planned tactic. With very few senior ministers willing to come out in support of Rudd before Monday's 10am caucus vote, it's been the Rudd family who have made the most vocal pitch to tap into his popularity with the electorate.

Rudd and family have spent the past day appealing to the punters who want the ex-PM back in the top job to call their local MPs and ask them to swing their vote to him on Monday. It's the family that spills together, stays together.

The ploy also feeds into Rudd's overtures to caucus that he is the only person in the party with the wider support to challenge Tony Abbott at the next election. Gillard's numbers across all opinion polls have consistently been underwhelming.

Millionaire businesswoman Rein yesterday fronted a press conference outside the family home in Brisbane urging "ordinary people" to back her husband in his campaign against Julia Gillard.

"Sometimes I feel like there are two kinds of Australia, there's two lands in Australia," she told reporters. "There's what happens inside the halls of Parliament House, and then there's what happens on the street, where all of us are, getting ready to go to work ... looking after our families, looking after our mums. Just ordinary people.

"And what ordinary people tell me is that they trust Kevin, they respect him, they know how hard he worked after the 2007 election and in the lead-up to that."

Meanwhile, Rudd's chick lit author daughter Jessica wrote on the popular women's blog Mamamia last night, insisting regular voters "own the spill".

"We are not a passive audience in a crowded cinema with popcorn on our laps waiting for the previews to end," she wrote.

"We are participants. We have a voice and I think we should bloody well use it. Get up and say something. Say it loudly. Be heard."

And that's exactly what the Rudd family has done, with one small catch: Kevin needs to convince his colleagues in the ALP, not the general public that he is ready to lead. On the current caucus numbers, it looks less than likely but don't rule out the power of the family.