A never-ending campaign trail

Politically correct

It feels like it has been going for months, but it’s only been six weeks. Now, the finish line is in sight with just one week to go until polling day. For many voters it is all over, bar the counting.

Almost 230,000 people have cast an early vote since Monday. But back on the campaign trail yesterday – after a day of high drama on Thursday – things were back to what we now call ‘‘normal’’.

On Thursday, we had Labour’s shock U-turn on tax, ruling out any further changes until after 2020 – beyond those already unveiled. The 1 News/ Colmar-Brunton poll showed Labour comfortably ahead, and able to govern with the Greens. And there was a feisty debate between Finance Minister Steven Joyce and Labour’s Grant Robertson.

What did the leaders get up to?

Standard campaign transmission resumed. Jacinda Ardern was in Dunedin, talking climate change and regional development, before dropping in at Polyfest, where she added to the selfie count with local students.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Bill English had to cancel a trip to Kaikoura because of high winds. Instead, he headed to Wellington and Hutt Valley for some furry animal pics at Kitten Inn, followed by his share of selfies at Kelson School before he had a walkabout at Queensgate mall.

Has Labour’s handbrake turn on tax stemmed National’s negative ads?

Nope, although the ads have been modified, they are still on message about Labour’s tax plans.

And to be fair, Labour has resorted to calling National desperate liars so it’s not all sweetness and light from that side either – despite Ardern’s promise to take a ‘‘relentlessly positive’’ approach.

Will the attack ads work?

Well, if they didn’t, parties wouldn’t spend so much time and energy on them.

But it is worth casting your mind back to National’s successful 2008 campaign, that ousted a three-term Labour government, and look at what National’s campaign manager then and now – Steven Joyce – said about that.

‘‘Our marketing approach led to a strong contrast immediately with our major competitor party. We wanted to run a positive campaign from the outset, while Labour went negative from the start,’’ Joyce was quoted as saying in Stephen Levine and Nigel Roberts book Key To Victory. ‘‘It did help us that Labour went negative.’’

Then, in a phrase that echoes Ardern’s playbook, he adds: ‘‘We responded by staying relentlessly positive.’’

Joyce wrapped up his analysis in 2008 by noting how it was a battle between two different political styles: ‘‘It’s dangerous to extrapolate one election as a trend, but I wonder whether as well as seeing a generational shift in our leaders, we are seeing a generational shift in attitudes to politics.’’

By that score is National missing the mood of the nation then?

Maybe – but we are a long way from predicting the result, especially with the polls all over the place. Yet interestingly Stuff journalist Martin Van Beynen, writing about his Kingswood Election Tour across the country, detects a generation shift among voters – that they are ready to ‘‘cross over into something new’’.