John MacDonald: Attn: National voters - do you know who I am?

Poor old Christopher Luxon. He got out of Wellington yesterday - out of the beltway as he said to reporters when he arrived - to do a walkabout in Tawa, north of the city. And reading between the lines in some of the coverage it was a bit choreographed. Remember last election campaign when Judith Collins had those loving admirers planted along Ponsonby Road in Auckland. I think the National Party's moved on from being that blatant, but the NZ Herald is reporting today that the walkabout saw Luxon chatting with “a choreographed mix of National’s urban bread and butter put together by the campaign team”. So these were small business owners, real estate agents and dairy owners. Plus, from what I saw on the news last night, a few randoms out on the street. But it was what one business owner, in particular, said to Luxon that made it onto the news. She was the owner of a cafe and, my take from what I saw and what I’ve read, is that she was certainly on Luxon’s side but took it upon herself to give him some advice. In fact, that’s exactly what she said when he dropped into her café. She said to Luxon that, while the people he was seeing during the walkabout seemed to be impressed by him, she was worried he wasn't doing enough to get other people to like him just as much. And not just like him - but vote for him and National. Here’s what she told him yesterday. "What I hear is we want a change, but we don’t know who you are. “People don’t know you. I really want you to put yourself out there more.” Being told people don't know him in front of all the cameras and microphones yesterday was the last thing he would’ve wanted - in such a public way. And I really feel for Luxon on that front. As he said to reporters after he’d been given that free piece of advice at the café, he’s all over the place at the moment (geographically). He said: “I was up in Northland last week. This week I’m down deep in Dunedin, and all over the country. “I’m out every day. I come to Wellington and then I leave as quickly as I can, and get out across New Zealand.” And he does do that. He is all over the country. As he should be, if he thinks he’s going to lead National to victory in October. But I do wonder if the purpose of all these visits he makes around the place - or some of the stuff he gets up to when he goes places - is working against him. And I’m thinking of a report I read at the weekend about his visit last week to Northland. It talked about how his team was busy filming him. Obviously for publicity stuff during the lead-in to October’s election. As the report said, there was actually a sign up at the venue of a public meeting telling people that it was being filmed and letting them know that footage from the meeting may be used in ads on all National Party PR channels. And I remember when he was down here recently too, and he’d been out filming at Lyttelton. He was telling me about it when he dropped in here for a chat. And I’m starting to wonder whether all this stuff he’s doing up and down the country - while it probably feels to him like he’s working really hard and doing his best to get in peoples’ faces - I’m wondering if he worried less about all the video work and all the choreography, whether people would start to feel that they have a better idea of what he’s about. Because, as someone who has met him twice now, I know he’s a very nice guy. I know he’s a politician too and what you see is the version of himself that he wants you to see. But I think he’s at risk of becoming all style over substance. And I think that’s more of a problem for him than whether or not people know him.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.