Bob wins but Winston's campaign lost its focus early on

The judges have spoken and Bob Clarkson is our fairly and squarely elected MP for Tauranga.
An electoral petition by former MP and now Foreign Minister Winston Peters was rejected by three High Court judges this week.
One wonders whether Mr Peters now will officially concede defeat and accept the electorate's wishes.
His first statement following the judges' decision didn't seem to indicate he had any such plans. But then "graceful loser" is not a phrase I have ever heard in relation to Mr Peters.
During the four-day hearing in Tauranga into the over-spending claims, I managed to spend a short session in there to see what was going on.
I was fortunate to be there during testimony from John Foote, Mr Peters' campaign manager as well as the NZ First candidate for the seat of Coromandel.
But what I didn't realise was that it seemed Mr Foote was also the chief Clarkson spy during the campaign.
I was rather astounded to hear Mr Foote say that he had photographed every one of Mr Clarkson's election signs during the campaign and even photographed some being erected.
He was incredibly knowledgeable about many of Mr Clarkson's activities and advertising movements.
I had to ask myself whether his time would have been better spent helping Mr Peters win the election rather than looking for reasons why Mr Clarkson should have the election taken off him.
A little advice on keeping Mr Clarkson's testicles out of the campaign would also have been handy. But then what would I know about politics?
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You might recall some comments I have made about the nature of television news coverage, particularly pertaining to events in Tauranga. Well TV3 did not take too kindly to my comments about them lifting material directly from the Bay of Plenty Times and making out it was their own material.
It seems I may have been a little harsh on them. When TV3 first raised the matter with me in relation to coverage of the Wairoa River bridge homicides I asked them for any proof that they had spoken to a relative of victim Toni-Anne Nathan.
I had exclusively spoken to Danielle Morrissey in our paper and she revealed details of the murdered couple that had not been in the public domain before.
That night, TV3 ran all the detail we had in our paper that day.
It now seems that the TV3 reporter had a three-minute phone conversation with Ms Morrissey after our paper had hit the streets and in that time managed to cover with her all the main detail contained in our story.
She told me she did not recall having covered that detail with him but I'll have to take TV3's word on that.
So I was probably harsh in suggesting they plagiarised our copy as they insist their reporter did not buy our paper that day.
I guess it is just coincidental that they had the same material we had and that they found Ms Morrissey in the first place as she was unknown until our paper hit the streets.
I'll consider myself told off.
It is a pity I couldn't have tidied this up a few weeks back but TV3 was not willing to provide any proof to me until I received it this week in the form of a copy of cellphone records and a copy of their reporter's notebook.
* * *
While on the subject of television news, did you appreciate the coverage of the double killing in Greerton this week on TV One's 6pm news bulletin?
I didn't.
I sat in bewilderment on Monday night and Tuesday night as the crime was totally ignored by the troubled broadcaster.
As I have said in this column before, had that crime been committed in Auckland, you could bet your house on the fact that it would have received good coverage, possibly even been the lead story on the bulletin.
But it wasn't in Auckland, it was in Tauranga, so it didn't even rate a mention.
I can understand that. Yeah, right!
And then if any further evidence was needed of TVNZ's demise, it was on Thursday night when the abduction of a five-year-old girl in Tauranga was not worthy of any mention. Fortunately they did have time to make a bizarre story on sunscreen the second item on their bulletin.
What is going on?
* * *
A few weeks back I raised the suggestion of a get-together for letter writers to discuss matters of the day.
While some writers were enthusiastic about the idea, I wasn't exactly overwhelmed with positive responses so we might park that idea until next year when I'll see if there is any greater interest.
* * *
Earlier this year we introduced Hannah Keys as a new teen columnist in our paper.
Over the past six months she has given us a refreshing look at life through the eyes of a teenager.
Unfortunately, work commitments mean Hannah cannot continue her column.
Fortunately, on Boxing Day we'll introduce two new columnists who'll give their perspective on life.