KEY POINTS:
For 14 days and nights in a Wellington office block in Bond St, the Labour Party hired a big empty office and turned it into what was called the "Labour Factory."
Party officials estimate that up to 400 volunteers turned up between 7am to 10pm to stuff Labour
advertising into one million envelopes and label them.
They were encouraged there by tea, coffee, pizza, and a desire to make the party's advertising dollar stretch as far as possible in the week that matters most in the business end of the campaign.
With no change to party spending limits, a longer regulated advertising period, and the cost of advertising rising, the same money has to go a lot further.
The task of preparing the mail drop is completed. In the next few days the material will be hand-delivered to letterboxes across the country in a direct mailing blitz that insiders say will be unparalleled.
The party is a formidable campaign machine and with union affiliates has superior ability to mobilise foot-soldiers. It has been able to make a virtue of the necessity to cut costs forced on it by its own Electoral Finance Act.
The party has been in office nine years but there is no hint of it being tired.
As well as the nationwide mail drop, there will be new television ads as well, with stronger attack ads on different positions taken by National leader John Key.
But the central theme of Labour's remaining campaign will be on Helen Clark's leadership.
Clark was remarkably successful in defining the campaign as being about "trust" and leadership. She did that when she announced the election date a month before the campaign launches. The trust question has allowed the party to go positive on Clark and negative on Key and can be applied to almost any policy.
By the campaign launch on October 12 the international financial crisis had deepened and the competition over who to trust in the crisis began.
Labour took a gamble in using the retail deposit guarantee in such a political way. But it paid off. The greatest concern of voters was the guarantee, not the stage on which it was announced.
It became clear early that voters would not be impressed with big spending promises at this time. So Labour also made a virtue of necessity with Clark declaring in week two there would be no more big spending promises.
The announcement to phase out the parental income test for student allowances ($420 million over four years) was the last big one and even that was considered a marginal call internally.
Labour is counting on the crisis giving incumbency an advantage - that despite Finance Minister Michael Cullen being unpopular outside the party, he is considered a safe and responsible steward of the economy.
As well as the advertising blitz planned for this week, Clark has two prime time television debates with John Key and the chance to improve on the first debate in the second week of the campaign. It is her task to convince voters that she and her party are the ones to trust as the global outlook sours.
