It's 12 years since National has had a knock 'em down and drag 'em out leadership battle.
It was when John Key knocked Don Brash down and dragged him out of caucus, even though the year before the former Reserve Bank governor came within 2 per cent of knocking Helen Clark off her perch. Politics is a tough, unforgiving game.
Since then the National Party's leadership's been rock solid and so has its support base.
But with Bill English gone and another leadership unknown about to be put in his place, that's all about to change. Any change of this significance always affects a party's popularity and it would seem only one of the five contenders can prevent that if you listen to the opinion polls.
The iron maiden Judith Collins is the preferred choice of National Party supporters and that's been fairly consistently around 44 per cent of voters. But even though it should, public popularity won't decide who will step into Bill English's Hush Puppies tomorrow.