KEY POINTS:
John Key may have won the television debate last night but Helen Clark is winning in the Herald's leaders' blogs - or "plogs" for the print edition.
Key's log is so turgid you've got to wonder if he has asked Don Brash to ghost write it for him while he is on the road. Key could have written it at his desk in Wellington last week for all the life of the campaign it displays.
Clark, however, must have been taken heed from the criticism of media reviewer Dennis Welch on Nine to Noon (listen here) yesterday.
After a rather starchy start on Monday, her piece today is full of detail not only about what she did but some of the interesting people she met on the trail, like a tattooed Brazilian barista at Little Cake Kitchen, and this: "The nostalgic bonus of the day was talking to baker Pearly Yew, who proudly re-told the story of our paths crossing many years earlier. I had watched her children (and others) compete in the Pt Chevalier Athletics Cup nearly 30 years ago - an event we both still remember."
Let's hope we see some actuality in John Key's postings from here on instead of a party press release.
The post-mortems of the debate will go on for the rest of the day I'm sure.
The Labour-leaning blog The Standard was quick off the mark last night with a fact-checking piece on some of Key's claims.
It was also critical of Clark for failing to pull up Key on a number of points and called it as a "narrow victory for Key".
There is no doubt that Key has been rated highly - including by me in my quick assessment last night because expectations of him were lower.
We expect Clark to be good. I had expected to see Key well versed in policy but to perhaps look as though he had been schooled. I didn't expect him to look in control so much and at ease in taking on Clark.
And she did have some awful moments. Like when she said he might be used to shouting over people at home but she wasn't going to do it to her.
It's hard to know what she meant by such a personal comment - and one that is hard to imagine being true. This is mild-mannered John, not Bruiser Brownlee or angry Bill English.
Maybe she meant to say he might be used to shouting in the National caucus. Maybe she just didn't mean to say it at all.
Key had fewer bad moments than she did, but not none.
When Shane Taurima asked him about whether he had told Pita Sharples the Maori seats would not be abolished without Maori consent, and he again said 'No', frankly I do not believe him.
He gets that Tranzrail look in his eyes and you just know he is hiding something.
Key last night changed tack on his answer to the question and after saying 'No', Sharples was not right he added there was "no formal agreement" about the Maori seats.
But no one has said there was.
What was said by Sharples in a Sky interview is that Key agreed in a private conversation that the seats would not go unless there was Maori consent. Here's the actual quote.
Sharples: "I've pinned him down. I said 'you admit to me that you won't get rid of those seats until Maori people say yes', and he said that's what he would do."
Victoria University political scientists Jon Johansson and commentator Colin James also mentioned on Morning Report this morning how uncomfortable Key looked over that question.
Let's see if Labour exploits that discomfort further.
On the Springbok Tour issue, Key has finally said what we suspected - that he was probably mildly pro-tour at the time.
But surely that now has to be an end to it.
