Bevan Rapson: Mayoral contenders inject heat into an otherwise tepid campaign

Len Brown claims to be a

Finally, this mayoral race may be heating up.

Let's hope so. Who could take much more of the leading candidates trying to out-bland each other with focus-group-friendly platitudes? Both John Banks and Len Brown have predictably aimed to be the nice guys, being all things to all voters.

For Brown the warm fuzzies come naturally. He's a "unifier", he claims, a "great listener" who can "get on with anyone". It's even more syrupy in his sermonising cadences.

And at the beginning of his campaign, the good-guy persona worked fine. No need to get aggressive when you're that far ahead in the polls. His finest hour was actually before most people knew who he was. Plenty were just happy to know he wasn't John Banks.

Then he went and got some profile. Oops! The hit footage of him beating himself up over a credit card spending row was an unexpected elixir for the ailing Banks campaign.

By the time Brown stepped up to a TV3 debate last week, he and his advisers seemed to have decided he needed to get on the offensive. His first words? "Any bully, any dictator will tell you he's offering strong leadership."

No, he didn't name Banks, but you can take it he wasn't talking about Simon Prast.

Brown "going negative" on TV is an acknowledgement that his comfortable lead is long gone. He's prepared to play rough.

That night, Banks turned the other cheek, coolly assuming the demeanour of a frontrunner. "My opponent is a good bloke and an honourable candidate," he said with a straight face. Mr Magnanimous.

This was pure New Banksie, a character who has famously given up the politics of "the bear pit".

Yet, by Saturday, at a candidates meeting in Birkenhead, he too came out swinging.

He would probably argue that Brown started it, sniping at divisive Citizens & Ratepayers politics - "the stuff John's been doing on his council", but it was surprising to see Banks taking the bait.

To start, he seemed to take the high ground, listing the attacks Brown had made on him - "You've got to leave the abuse, Len, at the back door" - before letting fly himself on how every shop in Brown's Otara is barricaded behind steel roller doors, how South Auckland has the worst family violence of any city on earth and how uncollected rubbish has piled high in Papatoetoe.

Even his platitude about providing "stable leadership" has an antagonistic cast when accompanied by a long slow stare at Len Brown and a heavy emphasis on the "stable".

In the suburb where he was first elected to the Birkenhead Borough Council in 1977, Old Banks was back.

Some voters find this stuff a turn-off, and not just in South Auckland. That's why going negative is always a risk, and why candidates would prefer to win easily, saying things like "I love Auckland" (Brown) and "If you give me the job I'll get the job done" (Banks).

But this race is too tight for that. And it's to everyone's advantage to see these candidates under pressure, challenged hard about their records, and maybe even revealing their true colours.

Rather than just waxing about their own marvellous qualities, they should be ready to put the acid on their opponents and take any chance to respond directly to criticisms of themselves.

Landing some jabs on Banks might just be Brown's best chance of shifting attention from the curious blows he directed at himself. And while Banks will be wary of being goaded into over-exuberance, he's still a streetfighter.

It needn't get brutal but it could get lively.