KEY POINTS:
Napier on a crisp autumn morning and John Key is sensing the chill winds of recession are starting to blow down Emerson St, the city's main shopping boulevard.
Staff in one of the street's shoe stores tell him the retailer is about to lay off a part-timer - "always the first to go in a downturn" observes Key, sounding more economist than politician.
As National's leader continues his walkabout, he is spotted by the owner of a nearby cafe, who complains he cannot pass on escalating costs of ingredients because his customers are simply not prepared to pay more. Soaring bills mean he will no longer open on public holidays.
Key nods in sympathy. Further down the street, however, his "how's business?" ice-breaker gets a very different response. With winter seemingly arriving early, a saleswoman in one clothes store tells him business is booming, thank you very much.
But not on this Tuesday morning. Few people are about. Key is finding it hard to find hands to shake on his promenade through the city centre.
He stops to chat with three youths. They are too young to vote. Quizzing them, Key ascertains they are recent school-leavers. They turn up in a speech later in the day with Key wondering aloud why they were wandering aimlessly through the streets and were not in some form of post-school training.
Back on Emerson St, people scurry past, oblivious to the man who the odds favour to be PM by the year's end. Where there is recognition, it is often the result of a double-take followed by a gasp of surprise.
Key stands out in the medium of television. But he does not stand out in a crowd. Neither does he turn heads like a Winston Peters or Rob Muldoon, despite looking slightly overdressed in his banker's pinstripe suit and being followed by a gaggle of photographers and reporters as he works the sunnier, slightly busier side of the street with National's Napier MP Chris Tremain in tow.
Adapting to the role of Leader of the Opposition is the proverbial steep learning curve - steeper than Key's relaxed demeanour lets on. It is a difficult role to adjust to. There is the danger of being overshadowed by fellow front-benchers who have the advantage of specific portfolio areas to raise their public profiles. The leader has to take the broad view. But he or she cannot survive merely on a diet of "vision"speeches. The leader has to attack the Government - but without sounding too much the Jeremiah. Failure to make an impact can quickly earn the "invisible" tag.
Key hit a rough patch in the latter half of last year, but now seems to have found some kind of equilibrium.
With National holding back the release of detailed manifesto commitments, Key worked out he needed an easily-digestible message that dealt with four or five basic voter concerns, such as economic management and education standards, and which he could hammer relentlessly.
He also needed to toughen up, impose the same tight self-discipline on himself as he expected from his MPs and not be dragged into fruitless arguments by Labour.
Key is National's most valuable weapon - but one untested by the huge demands placed on a leader in an election campaign.
Provincial visits like this one serve as dry runs for the campaign - opportunities not just to press the flesh, but to see what works with audiences and what doesn't. And to iron out mistakes.
One such slip comes during Key's lunchtime speech. Key declares that when it comes to average income, New Zealand has been overtaken by the Falkland Islands and Costa Rica. The statement draws an audible gasp from his wholly female audience drawn from business, management and other professions.
Key is correct about the Falkland Islands - in terms of GDP per capita.
But he is askew with Costa Rica. According to the Economist magazine, Costa Rica's GDP per capita stands at US$10,150, while New Zealand's is more than twice as big at US$25,000. On gross national income, Costa Rica ranks 90th in the world, while New Zealand is 37th. In terms of median income, New Zealand rates at 23rd, while Costa Rica is 59th.
It is an example of how Key can get carried away and loose with the facts. It is the sort of error which will be picked up in the white-hot intensity of the campaign and mercilessly exploited by Labour to mangle Key's credibility as would-be prime minister-in-waiting.
Back on Emerson St, however, Key's stocks are sky-high, judging by the reaction he is getting.
His strength is communicating one-on-one. He puts up no barriers. His charm soon has people warming to him. He happily engages in the awkward kind of small talk required for these brief, largely meaningless encounters.
Key's minders, keep one eye on their boss and the other looking out for anyone who might be trouble. But while people are not exactly effusive, there is no aggro. Some people just shake Key's hand as he passes and express the hope that he wins and walk off. Votes in the bank. Those that do stop and chat almost on cue talk about it being"time for a change". They don't explain why.
This prevailing sentiment for "change" is extremely difficult for Labour to combat as it is based on feelings rather than cold hard logic.
A faltering economy will reinforce that sentiment. But National must be increasingly in two minds about the political advantages of a sharp downturn. One shopper sums things up. "I don't envy you if you win," he tells Key, as the entourage heads off to Napier's seafront for his "ladies' lunch".
Key's day begins at the Cider Tree Cafe with a photo-opportunity promoting Hawkes Bay's apple festival. "If you've ever been to Bellamy's, you'd know this is real food," Key quips, tucking into what festival organisers plan will become the world's longest apple strudel.
It is at the next stop where the day's real work begins. Students are drifting into the cafeteria as Key and Tremain arrive at the Eastern Institute of Technology in nearby Taradale. Key stops to say a few words to a couple of them loitering outside. They know who he is, but it is hard work getting them to open up.
Not so with Tanisha Jones, who is studying full-time for a Diploma in Business Studies. Suddenly, Key is confronted with someone who uncannily fits the political marketeer's label of "target voter".
She personifies everything the coming election is about.
The 29-year-old has voted Labour all her life, but she is not happy with the ruling party's current direction. With four children and a husband who works full-time, she struggles to understand why Michael Cullen has not already cut taxes.
But - and it is a very big but - she and her husband get around $570 a fortnight in Working for Families payments. It is money they simply cannot afford to lose. Key's response that National will keep Working for Families entitlements and cut taxes proves not to be totally persuasive. She describes him as an "awesome talker". But she needs to do "more research" before deciding which way to vote.
If the Tanisha Jones of the world can be won over, National is home and hosed. Today it is sufficient that its leader has visited a polytech campus without running into strife.
Lunch, in contrast, is low-risk politically. The 80 or so women have paid $50 for what the War Memorial convention centre on Napier's Marine Parade describes on its function list as "Working the Room with John Keys".
"Keys" warms up his audience with an anecdote about recently meeting a 105-year-old in Whakatane who had voted National all her life. He told her: "You certainly are not a swinger, are you." The slightly risque anecdote goes down a treat.
He repeats it a couple of hours later at a National Party members-only function at the Marist Rugby Club rooms. There is no name confusion or recognition problems here, even if the grammar is somewhat awry. "The key to 2008 is with John" reads the sign hung above the beer-leaners and tables festooned with cheap fine china teacups and wads of raffle tickets.
Key likes to lace his speeches with anecdotes, spicing them up even more with other impact-making devices such as a telling statistic or a clever turn of phrase as he hits his themes of the steep cost of living, high interest rates, crippling household debt, the need to lift real wages, the brain-drain to Australia, and educational failure.
Questions from the floor at his Napier meetings focus on the burgeoning bureaucracy, gangs, KiwiSaver, job training, the high dollar, the Resource Management Act, global warming and the junior doctors' strike. Key addresses each question head on and at length. But while saying much, he reveals little about what National will do beyond what is already known of its intentions.
He deliberately strikes a positive note in his speech to party members, saying National will have policies that will excite New Zealanders and restore the country's confidence.
Winding up the 40-minute session, Key defines the election as a battle between National's politics of aspiration and Labour's politics of envy.
The sales pitch finished, there is one more thing to do - draw the winners of the various raffles.
Key can be certain of one thing - he will be drawing a whole heap more over coming months.
