KEY POINTS:
I'm in Bennelong central, in the heart of John Howard's electorate.
In the Centro cafe, to be exact, in the centre of the Eastwood shopping centre. Eastwood is the geographic centre of the north Sydney electorate.
It has a mall but the old-fashioned kind - not multi-storeyed, air conditioned type in the wealthier parts of the electorate. Here the road has been blocked off, nice paving laid and a magnificent wisteria canopy created measuring about 30m by 10m.
With Sydney temperatures at about 29 degrees at present, it is a shady and cool place to be.
But the signs in Bennelong are not good for John.
Virtually everything I have encountered suggests change.
No sooner had the taxi left than a man thrust a leaflet in my hand. Definitely not Liberal blue.
"All suffering SOON TO END!" it said.
It wasn't one of Maxine McKew's lot either, nor the Exclusive Brethren, but their rivals in a sense, the Jehovah's Witness.
The Masonic Temple, 1923 , is no longer the Masonic Temple but venue for a women's fashion clearance sale. The women inside say the whole thing is about to be bowled soon for a new building.
There was no sign of Howard support driving into the electorate. perhaps they are just not big on billboards in Australia. Or perhaps the feeling is that if you don't know who John Howard is after 11 years as Prime Minister, what's the point?
Then again there were only three posters of McKew, the former television current affairs journalist who could be the first candidate to unseat a sitting Prime Minister since 1929.
In the Eastwood shops however, Howard does have a presence: an outlet with posters and leaflets galore. It's about 50m away across the road. When I popped in it was staffed by a couple of really nice, really mature women.
I introduced myself as a New Zealand journalist which set off the fond memories from one: she and her husband had done both islands shortly after he retired - in the 1970s. Cold though, she said. When the butter in the Dunedin motel they were staying went soft, they put the butter in the car.
The other one had almost made it to New Zealand. The day before her husband died he had told his sister "I really want to go for a holiday in New Zealand" then had a massive heart attack.
The NZ-love was stopped, however, by the intrusion of a woman who had just decided to step in and have her say which became more fevered the more stunned the Liberal ladies became.
"I just want to say I think it time for Mr Howard to move on. He has had long enough. He should give up and spend more time with his wife. She has been sick. Mr Costello can take over. He's had long enough. He has been a very good Prime Minister but I've voted for Labor [she has already cast a special vote]. He should go. He told to me to speak up so I'm speaking up. He should go. He has had long enough. He should spend more time with his wife. He told me to speak up so I am."
She left and a bloke came in. He wanted to complain too. My God, I thought, I really am seeing the tide turn at the grassroots.
But he wanted to complain that his mother had received four letters from John Howard - and he had received none. Even the John Howard supporters are resentful.
It reminded me of the talk Australian political strategist Ian Kortlang gave at the Business Round Table offices in Wellington a couple of weeks ago now. Something had happened on the campaign in the previous week which gave him cause to say that Howard had been let down by the Liberal organisation on the ground in Bennelong. Something like turning up to a televised event at which supporters should have been ordered to attend.
The letter complaint, small as it sounds, may confirm that the local campaign may not be all that flash.
At that talk, Kortlang also talked about the changing demographics of the electorate. It has a relatively high Korean and Chinese population (only 58.4 per cent of the electorate speaks English at home; 8 per cent speak Cantonese; 6.1 per cent Mandarin; and 3.5 per cent Korean.)
Employing a bit of racial profiling, said that the Asian voter liked to back winners and that if looked like McKew was going to win, they could amass behind her.
The Sakura Supermarket opposite the John Howard shop has a series of yellow bordered Mckew posters. No one I've asked has actually seen her headquarters. But no one seems to care. They are backing her anyway. It may be the heart of Howard's Bennelong but it does not feel like heartland Howard.
