Memo to the MPs and those wanting to become MPs: Forget about the fancy frills around campaigning and get to areas like the Hutt Valley and tell people how you are going to save their jobs.
From Petone to Upper Hutt, people spoken to yesterday were concerned about job losses in the Hutt Valley.
Small and large enterprises have or are closing.
In some cases, businesses battling cheap imports, a volatile currency, falling domestic orders and just general doom and gloom have to give part-time workers fewer hours of work.
In some cases, several members of an extended family are facing the prospect of redundancy and, despite the call from business leaders that there is still a shortage of skilled labour in some areas, the people in the Hutt Valley do not feel optimistic about the future.
At Zapelles coffee bar in Lower Hutt, older people were making their way to the counter at 11.45am. The menu listed "Egg on toast $5", "Mince on toast $7" and "Beef stew $7".
The waitresses (yes, they were women) were busy dishing up and delivering good-sized portions of the mince and stew.
Ted and Miri Makaore have been married nearly 61 years; they are parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. They go to Zapelles once a fortnight after doing some grocery shopping or just if they feel like a treat for lunch.
As they tucked into their mince, they told Taking the Pulse that two of their three sons are likely to lose their jobs.
A partner of one of their granddaughters has just lost his factory job but they thought he could get another job in Petone through his brother.
They had lost count of the comings and goings of many of their extended family but the talk at a recent family gathering had been about how tough things were getting.
Mr and Mrs Makaore had voted Labour all their lives and were likely to tick the boxes for Labour MP Trevor Mallard and Labour on November 8.
They really liked the National Party candidate Paul Quinn because he was a Maori who had been a Wellington rugby stalwart and a prominent community activist.
But they were not sure about what would happen if they voted National after so long. There was a sense Mr Mallard could rest easy on that count.
Further up the road in Upper Hutt, New Zealand First MP Ron Mark was out campaigning.
As Taking the Pulse had him posing for his photograph, a woman with a marked Eastern European accent came up and said she had seen him on television and in the paper and wanted to take the opportunity to ask what he was going to do to save New Zealand jobs.
Upper Hutt had suffered several factory closures, Mr Mark said. People were nervous about their future.
Questions he had been fielding almost always turned to the NZ First policy of keeping New Zealand assets for New Zealanders. Some of the people approached yesterday had a "whatever" approach.
A group of young men standing outside a large Lower Hutt shopping mall smoking and laughing were a mixture of employed and unemployed.
They expected to have to keep looking for work, signing on to the dole, and then getting back into work. They did not know any different.
How did they manage for money? "It's all good, bro," one said to the loud laughter of the others.
National Party finance spokesman Bill English issued yet another call for Labour to release the costing of its promises it had made since Finance Minister Michael Cullen opened the books and showed New Zealand was facing a decade of deficits.
"Labour has made hundreds of millions of dollars of promises since the pre-election opening the books. Helen Clark has offered no advice about the impact of that spending on the government accounts.
"It is simply unacceptable for Labour to say there will be a mini-budget after the election. They have known about the state of the books for weeks longer than National."
On the streets of the Hutt Valley, no-one was caring too much how Labour, or National for that matter, was going to pay for any campaign promises.
Getting food on to the table, making sure kids were attending school and whether they would still have a job at Christmas were the issues occupying the minds of voters talked to yesterday.
Prime Minister Helen Clark was in Rotorua urging workers in a food warehouse to vote Labour.
She talked about motivating Labour's heartland support and both she and National Party leader John Key pushed the fear factor buttons yesterday warning what would happen if the other one was prime minister after the election.
Miss Clark said now was not a good time to change horses and vote for someone with little experience.
Mr Key warned of a "five-headed monster" of a Labour-led government.
A draw.
