Last night was the second meet the candidates meeting. As expected all candidates presented better with the biggest improvement coming from Aaron Bhatnagar, who spoke a lot better and more clearly than his first outing. Both he and Jami-lee Ross showed their political up-bringing in answering the policy focused questions far better than Maggie Barry who has, at best, a helicopter view of National party policy.
Some of the candidates are forgetting that although Botany is a wealthy seat, the older ones are often tradespeople and self-employed who left school early themselves. The word I have heard is that many delegates were disappointed to see silly dirty mudslinging brought into their electorate. It’s a pity too, because it is likely to have hurt the candidate it was designed to assist.
The Herald thinks it is a two horse race:
The National nomination for Botany looks to be down to a two-horse race between former broadcaster Maggie Barry and young Auckland councillor Jami-Lee Ross.
Matthew Hooton also comments:
Right-leaning political commentator Matthew Hooton this week said he believed it was a two-horse race between Ms Barry, 51, and Mr Ross, 25.
Hooton said on Radio NZ that Mr Ross had the advantage of being young and could bring voters to National who may not have voted for them before.
Gardening guru Ms Barry, who had conservation credentials and had appeared in advertisements for hearing aids, could be competition for New Zealand First leader Winston Peters in attracting older voters.
“If she does win that Botany election … she will be able to hit that Grey Power circuit, the sort of areas where National is sometimes weak,” said Hooton.
Current stock prices are:
Jami-Lee Ross to win selection: Price: $0.61 Probability: 61.5%
Maggie Barry to win selection: Price: $0.23 Probability: 23.2%
Aaron Bhatnagar to win selection: Price: $0.16 Probability: 15.9%
Ed Saafi to win selection: Price: $0.01 Probability: 1.1%
Darren Gedge to win selection: Price: $0.01 Probability: 1.1%
