Voters roundly rejected that ambition, with the Kurdish vote in particular swinging the election against the incumbents on an unprecedented scale.
David Cameron's party look well placed to topple Lib Dem incumbents in seats like Mid Dorset and North Poole, and St Austell and Newquay, where Labour was a distant third in 2010.
Although Kansas is a deeply conservative state, politics there has been upended in recent weeks, with a swathe of top Republican incumbents, up to and including the governor, Sam Brownback, battling against a surge of public anger over deep tax cuts.
The camera is trained on Kittel in the yellow jersey, who rides alongside the other fancy jumper incumbents - Jens Voigt in polka dot, Peter Sagan in white and Europcar's Bryan Coquard in green.
Writing on his blog this week, he noted that Apple and Google (with Android) overcame the incumbents, Nokia and BlackBerry, because they could build devices using technologies – big touchscreens, fast mobile networks – that would have sunk them in 2000, but led to success after 2007.
The size of some Labour incumbents' majorities is also a factor, – even a small, late shift away from the SNP would be enough to save them.
Incumbents or challengers well ahead in the polls have little to gain from televised debates and much to lose.
The suddenness with which Grillo has emerged and taken one in four of Italian votes may have shocked the traditional governing elite across the EU, but it shows little sign of knowing how to respond or adjusting to the message being sent by voters who have sent incumbents tumbling one after the other from Greece to Finland over the past three years.
The mass voter rebellion against incumbents began in February last year as bailout candidate Ireland went to the polls.
It is a sobering fact that the centrist government of a Central American country is arguably a good deal to the left of the red-dyed incumbents in Cardiff Bay.
With Bradby moving to News at Ten other changes could include Austin and Etchingham both moving to the ITV Evening News at 6.30pm, although this would raise the question of what happens to incumbents Stewart and Mary Nightingale.
