Costello says many urging him to stay

Former treasurer Peter Costello continues to tease his Liberal colleagues, revealing
"a lot" of people are urging him to reconsider his decision to quit federal
politics.
According to opinion polls, Mr Costello remains the favourite among voters to lead
the Liberal Party to the next election, with current leader Malcolm Turnbull in
third place behind opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey.
In a Newspoll published on Tuesday, Mr Costello had 36 per cent support as Liberal
leader, followed by Mr Hockey at 20 per cent and Mr Turnbull at 16 per cent.
Last month, Mr Costello put an end to the speculation about whether he might take a
tilt at the Liberal leadership when he confirmed he was retiring from politics and
wouldn't renominate for his seat of Higgins.
And he flagged, once a new candidate was pre-selected, he might quit early,
prompting a by-election in his seat.
But Victorian Liberals aren't reportedly keen for a by-election, worried about the
lack of a hefty margin in the seat.
Since then, Mr Turnbull has suffered a major slump in the polls following his
handling of the controversial OzCar affair, when he used what turned out to be a
fake email to call for the resignation of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
During a round of media interviews on Wednesday, Mr Costello laughed off his
apparent popularity.
"If you're doing well in the polls, don't gloat but gee don't try and tell the
public they're wrong," he told Fairfax Radio.
Mr Costello then went on to admit "a lot" of people had been in touch to ask him to
reconsider his retirement plans.
He skirted around the subject of whether he was considering the appeals, though said
he was not at the "frontline of politics anymore".
"It's nice to be wanted but I'm not in the frontline anymore and I've left it to
others to take up the cudgels."
Mr Costello cautioned against reading anything into the fact that the deadline for
nominations for Higgins had been extended by a month to July 30.