KEY POINTS:
Winston Peters will be disappointed that National last night selected a new candidate to contest the Tauranga seat.
The New Zealand First leader had been relishing a contest with Bob Clarkson, and not just for utu.
Peters stood a good chance of regaining the seat from the one-term
National MP, whose mystique has rubbed off quickly and who has always struggled to look comfortable as an MP.
A contest with Clarkson would have made Peters look sophisticated, fresh and energetic.
Clarkson at first said he would stand again. The news was not met rapturously by National because its groundwork suggested Peters had the upper hand.
But having defeated Peters in 2005, Clarkson was owed the respect of making the call and not being bullied out of the candidacy.
But either the message got through to him, or some other personal reasons arose, for he has changed his mind.
In Simon Bridges, Peters faces a young, new face, someone who more represents the sort of change National is projecting nationally through leader John Key.
That will be a tougher contest for Peters. The mood for change has stubbornly persisted in the polls for almost two years in nationwide polls and there are perhaps as few as four months to go to the election.
Will the harder task put Peters off? Not likely. He stopped just short of declaring for the seat in a speech to the electorate annual meeting on May 25.
Electorate chairman Roy Townhill thinks it will now happen at the party's convention in mid-July. But that will be at Alexandra Park in Auckland - where Peters launched his party 15 years ago - and is not a fitting venue for a parochial Tauranga announcement.
The news is likely to be unveiled before then and in the electorate, probably on July 15, the birthday of the party's formation.
Peters has put off confirming his nomination for Tauranga, for good reason. From the moment he does declare, he opens a third front that will require careful management beyond the two jobs he juggles now, that of Foreign Minister and New Zealand First leader.
Every absence from important local events will be fodder for his opponents, with the exception of him hosting a visit from United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
He might then have earned a get-out-of-jail-free card for having accepted the "baubles of office" when he said he wouldn't.
Delaying his declaration is also vintage behaviour for a politician who is well practised at doing the Dance of the Seven Veils. Peters will never say today what he can hint at tomorrow and again next week.
Less certain is t how he will conduct himself in relation to other parties before the election.
Having worked constructively with Labour for almost the whole term and with no chance of him "pulling the plug" in the past few months, he has an advantage he has never had before.
Unlike the last election, there will be no credibility issue, in theory, over his promise to deliver stable government with either main party.
Whether he can go so far as to demonstrate that in practice by being more even-handed in his treatment of the major parties between now and the election is doubtful.
Reducing his attacks on National at this late stage would be an unnatural act.
And with serious business still under negotiation between New Zealand First and Labour, it would be equally unnatural to enter a period of contrived distance between them. For its own credibility, Labour is desperate to get the Emissions Trading Scheme Bill passed.
Its political advisers are thought to be working in overdrive to achieve agreement with both the Greens and New Zealand First.
Stitching a deal together without New Zealand First would be possible but is not a viable option. If it were a deal that appealed only to "fringe" parties - Greens and Maori Party - and not the centrist party, it would probably not be a deal that Labour could sell to the public generally anyway.
In that sense New Zealand First demonstrates its worth to Labour, not just in pure numbers, but as a moderating influence and as a means to accentuate the National Party's hold-out position as cynical politicking.
New Zealand First also holds the balance of power on the Real Estate Agents Bill, which Labour is less desperate to pass since it realised it might not have the numbers. Peters is not blindly following Clayton Cosgrove's demonisation of agents and his staff are negotiating their way to an agreement.
Peters' declaration for Tauranga, when it comes, will be made with every confidence that his fortunes are heading up.
He did well from the Budget, in terms of what it delivers to the elderly and in the polls.
New Zealand First support increased slightly in the Herald DigiPoll survey and the TNS TV3 poll, and jumped in support in Colmar Brunton's poll to 4.4 per cent.
Peters' personal support as preferred Prime Minister jumped in the Herald and One News polls not just because of the Budget but on old buttons - anti-foreign investment issues and concerns about monetary policy.
His weakness throughout this term, however, has been his ability to accumulate a clutter of extraneous negative issues that became defining issues for the party.
Among them were the long delay in deciding whether to pay back the unlawful 2005 election expenditure; the decision to give it to the Starship hospital then to other charities when the hospital turned it down; the mysterious large donation in the party's accounts; the mysterious nil return in the party's donations declarations; and his natural inclination to blame anyone but himself, and preferably journalists, for his misfortune.
With a strong campaign by Peters and the discipline not to be drawn into distracting side-alleys, it might be National that turns out to be disappointed in Tauranga.
