Editorial: Brash team miss their big chances

Our poll today gives the first proper measure of the public response to the tax cuts promised by the National Party if it wins the election. The findings may give National some heart, though they also suggest it still has work to do if the tax cuts are to be an election winner. The poll was running before and after the announcement of the tax package on Monday. National's support before the announcement was just 32.3 per cent against Labour's 46 per cent. After the tax cuts became known, those questioned brought that 13.7 point gap down to just 6 points; the overall poll result gives Labour a 9-point lead.

While National will look only at the responses recorded since Monday, it should consider carefully why it was tracking so poorly in the days before. Labour had tactically outpointed National's campaign by launching its own tax relief package last week. It did so into something of a void. So reliant had National become on its king-hit that it ceded space in voters' minds for much of the preceding fortnight to a Labour Party desperate to retain power.

It is increasingly evident that National's political team is lagging behind its organisational team. Funding, membership, advertising and promotions seem professional, even slick. Yet the strategic plan for the campaign, the execution of political messages and the handling of breaking controversies have been repeatedly deficient. It has failed to manage unpopular policies, like its stance on nuclear ship visits and West Coast logging. This weakness cannot simply be sheeted home to Dr Brash and his relative inexperience. All seasoned political operatives, including National's, knew that he could be vulnerable in the heat of his first campaign as leader.

Labour has outpointed National on "prebuttal" as the Americans term it: trying to undermine an opponent's message even before it is delivered. It has been better, and quicker, at rebuttal. Its leading figures have set out to dominate their opposites and have largely been successful on television and before audiences. It has identified raw issues in the public mind and applied its salves. It has been more ruthless and focused, full stop, from its parliamentary wing.

For all that, the challenging party finds itself just six points adrift in the polling taken since its tax policy was announced, with a trend line showing it clawing back Labour's lead. There are three long weeks of campaigning to come. In 1993, a poll taken on the eve of the election and not published till the booths closed put National comfortably clear. Within hours, the official count had delivered a vote which came close to tipping out the Bolger government after one term.

Anecdotally, there seems to be cynicism towards Labour's personalities, some of whom have outstayed their welcomes after six years in the nation's living rooms each evening. There is concern, too, at its sudden discoveries of multi-hundred-million-dollar sources of new funding to buy itself back into the lead. And on health and education, which it accuses National of conspiring to undermine, Labour has vulnerable Achilles heels. When its candidates ask of voters: "Do you want a strong, effective public health system?" the answer that may come to mind is: "Yes, but you've had six years, why haven't you delivered one?"

To date, Labour has given National a lesson in realpolitik. Cheeky billboards and $3.9 billion in tax cuts can only do so much.