What the politicians think: Don Brash

Don Brash

Don Brash returned to a simple message yesterday.

"Do you really want the continuation of six years of over-taxation, six years of political correctness and six years of racial divisiveness?"

As the campaign reaches its last days, the National leader looks back on a coffee stop at the home of Napier grandmother Rosemarie Edwards yesterday as his best moment this campaign.

He maintains her stunning whitebait fritters had nothing to do with it - and it also appears he's not judging it by television coverage of the visit, because there was none.

He liked it because it had personal significance and epitomised why he went into politics in the first place - the overseas exodus of Kiwis.

Dr Brash ran into Rosemarie at an airport a year ago, where she was lamenting the loss of three daughters to Australia. It struck a chord and he began repeatedly telling her story - although they hadn't exchanged details and he didn't know how to reach her.

In June the mystery was solved when she recognised her story and wrote to him - and yesterday the pair met again.

He rates the Exclusive Brethren debacle, where Dr Brash says he failed to connect the dots and "gave the impression I'd told an untruth" as his worst campaign moment.

"Running a close second has been the leaked emails and I still don't know where they came from."

He's a little disappointed about the difficulties getting some key messages out, placing some of the blame on sensationalist reporting.

He felt a little trepidation hitting his first shopping malls - particularly in Labour-friendly Dunedin. He expected coolness if not hostility, but the reaction was generally very warm.