KEY POINTS:
A woman bowls up to John Key in a Papatoetoe walkabout and stares silently at him. She had heard a television host say his eyes were wonky and wanted to check for herself.
He says, "What have I done wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong. It's your looks."
"Good or bad?" he asks.
She shrugs and turns away, conceding only that he's nicer than he looks on television.
Helen Clark has a close call on a walkabout at Manukau City's shopping mall. She goes toward the Muffin Break, but notices it has a coffee bean poll which even in this safe Labour area, is showing National's beans higher than Labour's.
She abruptly turns away and gets a warmer welcome elsewhere when two first-time voters shout, "I'm voting Labour", and give her a high five.
Such are the random encounters the leaders face in their three-yearly job interviews with the nation.
Walkabouts and public meetings are the traditional parts of the campaign, where leaders come face to face with the voters and have little control over what might be said.
At the end of the first week Helen Clark said Mr Key's campaign was "hermetically sealed" and he was staying out of reach of the public, while she and Labour were "out there taking the risks".
Yesterday, she said he was having public meetings "stacked with National Party supporters".
The Weekend Herald ran a rule over the leaders' schedules and went on the road to ascertain whether Helen Clark was right - and to assess whether "public" encounters are genuine public meetings or restricted to supporters in a show for television cameras.
The results show Mr Key has increased his number of genuine public meetings since that first week. But his schedule in the first week was no less public than hers in terms of "risking" running into unfriendly voters.
Mr Key is also outstripping the PM on public walkabouts and has tended to enter enemy territory more than Helen Clark.
He did a 90-minute public walkabout in the streets of Papatoetoe - Labour's territory - to promote his law and order policy and also visited a decile one school near Gisborne for education policy.
The reason for the difference in emphasis is in style. Mr Key is more relaxed about walkabouts. Helen Clark doesn't like to linger with one person and struggles with the small talk - possibly not helped by the slightly awed reaction she causes.
Helen Clark prefers smaller meetings to one-on-one encounters. It's a tie on the way they handle public meetings, although Mr Key tends to be more conversational.
Both take questions after speaking, and have faced critical questions on their weak points - Helen Clark on the brain drain, on parole for "degenerates" and on the anti-smacking bill;
Mr Key over the anti-smacking law, climate change and abolishing the Maori seats.
Helen Clark's claim that National stacked a public meeting attended by more than 600 people in Pukekohe with its supporters is rejected by the local MP Paul Hutchison.
He said the meeting was advertised widely, including in the local paper and on billboards and posters and the ads said all were welcome.
Helen Clark focuses on her record and relentlessly tries to plant seeds of doubt about whether a change in government could cause uncertainty.
She goes to some length to outline the dangers of the crisis for New Zealand, quipping to audiences "when I first heard of Fannie Maes and Freddie Macs I thought they were hamburgers".
Mr Key instead focuses on criticising Labour for excessive bureaucracy, "having a spending plan but no growth plan" for nine years, and - since the Greens said they would side with Labour - pushing the message that an unwieldy "five-headed monster" of a coalition would be disastrous for decisive action on the economy.
Helen Clark also makes subtle jibes against Mr Key - dropping his former employer Merrill Lynch into speeches alongside "greed merchants" and referring to her "little house" - apparently to draw comparison with his Parnell house.
Labour's attack ads on Mr Key also started this week. He laughed them off, attributing them to Labour having no ideas other than to get down and dirty. But he has begun to take a few swipes at Helen Clark.
At the Pukekohe meeting, a schoolgirl raised the issue of cars going past her rural school at 120km/h.
"Lucky you don't live in Waimate. They go much faster there," he quipped - a reference to Helen Clark's speeding motorcade in 2005.
