Most politicians try to disguise their contempt for voters on the campaign trail. Luxon’s making it his closing argument.

During Victoria’s 06 drought, I was hired to set up a lobby group for artificial-turf installers. Literally astroturf for AstroTurf. So I think that qualifies me to clear up confusion: of course the Parents Alliance is astroturf. I’d say “textbook”, but they'd try to censor it.

This soul crushing profile may have helped Luxon in '23 when his boring corporate ascent could still be mistaken for evidence he’d make a decent PM. But the relentless focus on his getting ahead lands poorly when the rest of us have fallen behind. thepost.co.nz/politics/36109…

The Nats’ strenuous daily efforts to make taxes, rather than costs, the defining issue of this election carry a whiff of desperation almost potent enough to overpower the stench of futility.

Totally right. And check out the lip-smacking glee of the coordinated rollout as if they've been hanging out for weeks for the chance to bash some poor people to take their minds off losing the election & remind themselves why they got into politics in the first place.

These are terrible people who think the rest of us are too.

Of course I am biased! My opinion on who won the debate is worthless! That's exactly why I'm curious about objective measures of public opinion, 2 of which TVNZ had but then mostly ignored when the results were so one-sided. Is my point not clear? Do you read before replying?

My point is precisely not what you or me think, or even what TVNZ thinks, but this: why fork out for opinion testing tools and then downplay the findings, which showed an unusually decisive win, greater than Ardern's in 2020 and Luxon's in 2023?

Unbelievable. They're running as if we're all just gratefully basking in unprecedented prosperity. Never seen anything like it.

Look, I get why they do it, part of me even respects it, but @1NewsNZ seriously underplayed what its own debate and two audience-testing exercises (Vote Compass & undecided panel) showed: Hipkins won hands down. Reporting an emphatic result as emphatic isn’t taking sides.

The only way I can make sense of National's dreadful, almost other-worldly, campaign is that conventional political judgement has been swept aside by an aggresive unwillingness on the part of its leadership cohort to entertian unpleasant thoughts or hear unpleasant truths.

With its promise to make it easier to visit your kids in Australia, National keeps reaching new heights in tone-deafness. Truly staggering.

Still processing how badly the Nats bombed yesterday. For one of many, many things, they had no policy to announce so repackaged ten existing promises as a “pledge card', pretending the packaging was the announcement. Rather than concealing the absence. It advertised it.

"Electorates are very difficult to poll well” is one of those canards that gains authority through repetition. In my experience, a good sized electorate sample gives good numbers if weighted well. If weighting is the problem, the fact it's an electorate poll is immaterial.

Driving to Napier today, saw quite few of those signs featuring the Luxon/Willis power couple -- but still not nearly enough. I'd happily volunteer to hekp plaster the countryside with them.

Can't tell whether pervasive calls for "boldness" on Labour's part represent gormless but well meaning incitements to malpractice or a sincere preference for the righteous defeat.

Really don't know that Labour's policies, as opposed to voter perceptions about its priorities & credibility, will turn out to be especially salient.

“Small target”, in that implies passivity & defensiveness, misleads I reckon. Labour’s strategy better seen in terms of territory: minimise the ground that favours National without surrendering that which favours Labour. Issue-based polling suggests they’ve mostly achieved this.