KEY POINTS:
It's time for Meet the Candidates and I'm happy to be in the audience, not on the stage.
Last week, we joined some 30 locals at the old Martinborough Town Hall to hear six earnest campaigners strut their parties' stuff.
In 2004, as an Act MP, I held a meeting here and five people turned up, most of them nutters wandering past and feeling like respite from the midday heat.
On reflection, that was proportionately equal to this meeting - five attendees to every speaker.
But that wasn't my worst meeting. In Rotorua, I was heartened to see people pouring through the doors to hear my pearls about smaller government. Alas, a get-rich-quick property seminar was running in the adjacent conference room.
How could I compete with Sir Robert Jones wannabes? My audience comprised my Mum, two elderly friends she had promised dinner afterwards, the man painting her bathroom and his son.
Richard Prebble holds the record. At a meeting in Mangaweka in the 1990s, the hall was empty save the local journalist. When said reporter wrote that no one came to hear the Act leader, The Preb rang him and asked, "Are you not a person?"
Poor lambs, it's such a thankless task, campaigning at public meetings with five minutes before the chairman tinkles his little bell.
Someone who hates you no matter what, and the town bore bails you up over stewed tea, face too close and spitting, a know-all who thinks he - and it's always a he - can do better.
We, the voting public, should support them all with our presence - at least they're having a go.
I scarpered from last week's meeting before the supper room zip boiled, but not before the fun began.
Labour candidate Denise MacKenzie started badly, thanking us for eschewing the chance to see Helen Clark "make John Key look like a schoolboy or a boy scout" - this being the night of the leaders' debate. Commentators next day would show MacKenzie had jumped the gun.
Was she also getting ahead of herself and hinting at changes to the kick-in for national Super when she told us Labour would "raise the minimum age", or had she forgotten to put the 'w' into age? She didn't know her stuff on the emissions trading scheme, unlike Green candidate Michael Woodcock, a pleasant chap, genuinely campaigning for a better future for his grandchildren, he said.
Brave Richard McGrath from the Libertarianz Party kicked off with a good point, reminding us that his leader Bernard Darnton had started proceedings which found Labour had misused funding for its 2005 pledge card. Before we take Clark's word that this election was about trust, he advised, we should recall that Labour changed the law to suit its behaviour.
Our current MP, National's John Hayes, was in a foul mood, perhaps because he'd just learned we must pay $900 in consent fees to own five fowls. Grumping over the Christmas cracker ban, he sat beneath the Fire Exit sign, took a call on his cellphone, then put down a nice lady who'd asked a perfectly reasonable question. Hayes needs to cheer us, like his leader. I reckon Key gets votes just for his sunny disposition.
Act's candidate was AWOL, but stand-in Graeme Tulloch was best in show, causing my neighbour to ask me, not so sotto voce, "Why isn't this man the leader?" Perhaps because the party of consumers and taxpayers needs a canary in the mine, instead of homespun jerseys, woolly hats and comfy corduroy trews.
Sartorially splendid, as you'd expect, was New Zealand First candidate, Edwin Perry, in a tailored dark suit. His leader, Winston Peters, would expect no less.
In the party brochure's fine print I spied the single reason for returning NZ First to Parliament: "NZ First will set up a compulsory register for convicted paedophiles". Only Peters would have the guts.
Star of the night was our own Jim Trott, who asked all candidates a question relating to politics in Poland. Trott, in case you don't know, is the "no, no, no" guy in The Vicar of Dibley, and our Jim had the same accent.
When Act's Graeme Tulloch finished speaking, Jim asked if he knew Sir Roger Douglas had helped the Poles establish a Communist Party.
I got the giggles and had to hold my nose and turn red.
Sir Roger's been accused of many things but even he would be surprised to learn that here, in a village of some 1000 people, one man holds him responsible for the Polish Communist Party.
