Day four and the campaign is off to the Hawkes Bay.
The campaign trail is starting to get its own momentum. I have seen three of the meetings and the candidates are honing and refining their skills and presentations.
Last night they met in Shane Jones territory in Whangarei. The meeting was one of the biggest Labour meetings held in the north for many years with well over 200 people attending. Proceedings were delayed as a number of new members wanted to join and their applications had to be processed.
The meeting started with Dover Samuels receiving a well deserved gold medal. Never one to waste an opportunity he took the chance to promote his campaign for the Regional Council and to advocate for the first Prime Minister from the far north.
Proceedings were good natured and there was a lot of laughter and gentle ribbing amongst the candidates. May this new found unity become the norm.
To my mind David Cunliffe stood out. He was more relaxed than he was the day before. He can be genuinely funny and engaging and was certainly this last night. The Shane Jones supporters I spoke to agreed that he had performed best.
And the right definitely do not like the amount of air time the campaign is generating. Labour is dominating the media in a positive way like it has not done in a long time. Expect the usual mouthpieces of the right dial up the hysteria and start to get personal in their attacks.
The venue today is Pukemokimoki Marae, 191 Riverbend Road, Maraenui and the meeting starts at 7:30 pm.
The details about eligibility to attend are as before.
People entitled to attend include members, former members as long as they sign up again and new members who sign up at the door.
Media can attend but for the preliminaries and the speeches only.
If you are going you should get to the meeting early as there will be a vetting process and this could take some time. People should bring their membership cards or ortherwise photo ID so that they can be identified. Photos and social media can be taken and used during the open part of the meeting.
And a reminder that current members and those who have been financial members of the Party sometime between January 1 2011 and August 22 2013 but have not yet paid their membership for 2013 can renew their membership and vote, so long as they do so before 12.00am on Friday 6 September. This can be done by clicking here. New members will not be able to vote.
UPDATE DISCLAIMER: Just in case anyone is not aware of this I am a supporter of David Cunliffe and a member of his LEC.
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