Offering money is always a goodie.
Extra benefits, tax cuts, the usual fodder.
And yes, the Winston Peters factor emerges again...and again and again.
Just make the guy Prime Minister and let's see what happens.
It will ether be inspirational or highly entertaining in a slightly disturbing sense...particularly if he gets to dine with Donald Trump and they start chatting about immigration.
I'd pay good money to be in on that.
So political party boys and girls...what will your crew do about the Manawatu Gorge?
Start assembling working parties and hiring consultants by the dozen who will compile reports with pages by the thousands and after seven years decide that yes, something needs to be done?
We don't seem to get a lot done in this country...just check out the long-running issues surrounding building a decent motorway into Wellington...and sorting out the ridiculous roading snarls around the Basin Reserve.
We are pedantic with a capital P.
In places like Japan and China, if something is essential, for both effective transportation and the overall economy, they get things done.
Here it is meeting after meeting and analysis after analysis and recommendation after recommendation...and that's just to put together a board of consultants.
So there you are ladies and gentlemen of whatever party you are aligned with.
What are you going to do about one of the country's major access highways which is now closed due to continual slippage and the apparent dangerous movement of hillsides?
Easy.
Build a viaduct.
Simple.
They are up and running across otherwise daunting roadway landscapes all over the world and they work.
Just cut to the chase and build one.
And while on the subject of transport...what will your political band of head-scratchers and working-party formers do to sort out the rail network?
There's a nice non-slip affected railway line through the gorge and I doubt it's seen a train for years, certainly not a passenger one apart from the occasional tourist special.
Once upon a time there was a great passenger railcar system which went down to Wellington and along the way it went through the gorge and guess what...the slips never fell upon it.
That side is slip-less.
Check out the full buses that head south these days.
There is clearly a need for passenger transport but the rail lines lie silent.
Also check out the logging trucks and other general freight trucks that roll south down from the coast and further onwards through the disintegrating Saddle Rd.
As someone said to me the other day...one train will carry what 25 big road-hammering trucks will carry.
We've got a fine railway line system but it just lies there.
Unlike every other country I can think of which uses them for their practicality, effectiveness and (compared to hammered roads) relative ease of maintenance.
So, give us your stance on the railways.
And another thing...crikey I'm on a roll now...what do you reckon about making sure sentences actually fit the crime?
And how about subsidies for people who want to go and watch the Kiwi boys taking their Aussie rivals apart over there in the V8 Supercar series?
Well, maybe that's taking things a tad too far but hey, sport and the support of it is important you know.
As long as it's a Ford of course but let's not go there.
Although why not?
Ask the leaders of the political foes who they want to see take out Bathurst...Ford or Holden?
Try that in Oz and the wrong answer could cost you your seat.
Oh, and one last thing as one should not dally too long with this beast called 'politics'.
What's with all the billboards?
I truly do not believe people are influenced by a face or a few words on a billboard they see by a roadside...unless it's for a cut-price TV or pizza.
I think most minds are made up by what they hear and what they read and what they are promised but hey, if you have a budget for billboards might as well use it...although collectively across the country that budget allowance could build...a viaduct somewhere.