During the election campaign some parties tried harder for my vote than others. So who tried the hardest? I kept a tally of the ways and numbers of times parties put themselves under my nose.
(In alphabetical order)
ACT
4 leaflets in my mailbox. One included a magnet. 3 of the leaflets were “homemade” pinted on a colour copier by the looks. Only one, the last one to arrive, was commerically and professionally printed. This was also the only ACT leaflet of substance.
One street corner placard waving episode outside the window at work. Didn’t make much impact as almost no-one tooted.
Greens
5 leaflets in my mailbox. All very professionally done. Good mix of headlines and detailed content. One duplicate leaflet delivered twice.
Three billboards on a trolley bus drove past the window at work. It was probably the same bus but I noticed it three times – very appropriate advertising I thought.
Labour
6 leaflets – the most of any party but with one duplicate. Ran the full range from the PM writing to me adressing me by my first name, to the electorate candidate writing to me as a woman and addressing me as “Ms”. Also had the biggest glossiest leaflet and the smallest tackiest produced note inviting me to talk to him on a street corner. I was at work at the time.
One vehicle convoy which at one point was chased by a National convoy – very strange.
Last but not least one “Destiny church-esque” walk-by chanting march outside my window at work. Thought it was a mistake as they looked and sounded more threatening than enthusiastic.
Maori Party
One vehicle convoy past the window at work. Complete with dozens of flags on dozens of vehicles and Hone Harawira on the back of a Ute with a megaphone. Not entirely sure that was safe
National
Only 3 leaflets, 2 postcards of little substance and one 4 pager filled with pictures – Do you think I can’t read or do you have nothing to say? One leaflet invited me to morning tea with the candidate at a coffee shop – some of us work you know! I found it quite hard to disassociate the National candidate from his previous party so I almost assigned all the National leaflets to ACT.
One vehicle convoy spotted three times in an afternoon driving up and down Lambton Quay. At one point they appeared to do a U-turn to chase a Labour convoy.
One billboard on my route to work. I live very central so I didn’t regularly pass any of the suburban billboard farms. I did go and visit a couple but they don’t count.
Three street corner waving episodes – boy were these irritating. Did it occur to any of you that those buildings contain people trying to work. Besides it was quite irresponsible out on the traffic islands – enough people get hit by busses as it is, you’re just bloody lucky you didn’t become a statistic.
Did it have any impact?
No, I didn’t change the way I voted. It made me wonder what the point was in killing all those trees and wasting all that petrol on the convoys. And what were the Progressives, United Future and NZ First doing? I heard and saw nothing of them.
The whole campaign felt quite superficial, pretty window dressings but not much behind it for some parties. When I went looking at candidate information across the country I thought it was woeful. A few had informative sites or pages but many more still got to polling day with “coming soon” notices on their pages. If your party is providing a page for you, how hard is it to write something meaningful and put up a digital photo?
