Nothing like leaving things to the last minute.
Most of the major and minor parties have their horses at the starting gate for the race that does not stop a nation, the NSW election, next month.
Precisely four weeks from the jump, the Nationals, Greens, Shooters and One Nation have locked in their runners. In fact, most of them did so weeks ago.
But the Libs, the ones hoping to retain government, are again struggling to identify, select, vet and publicly announce Hunter candidates in a timely fashion.
Former German army officer Thomas Triebsees is the Liberal candidate for Newcastle, and young Newcastle councillor Callum Pull will contest Wallsend.
The party named youth worker Michael Cooper to run in Maitland on Friday, but the Libs have failed to announce starters for Port Stephens, Charlestown, Swansea or Lake Macquarie.
It appears as though the Libs' push a while back to dispense with top-down preselections and encourage more rank-and-file decision-making has not always proved a resounding success.
Many Liberal branches in the Lower Hunter, not to mention across the state, have not given whoever they eventually preselect much time to raise their profile.
And, of course, Dom Perrottet still has not been to Newcastle in the 508 days since becoming premier.
At the 2022 federal election, a ScoMo-led committee picked Katrina Wark to run in Newcastle after taking over the party's NSW division in a bitter factional turf war.
The party's Hunter malaise is all the more puzzling given the Libs held Maitland and Port Stephens as recently as 2015, and Labor MP Kate Washington's margin in the latter is only 5.8 percentage points.
Jenny Aitchison's margin in Maitland is 14.7 points after a boundary redraw, but the Libs should have had strong candidates on the ground in both seats well before now.
So, too, Lake Macquarie, where popular independent Greg Piper will not be in Parliament forever. It would not be a surprise to see Piper bow out in four years' time, leaving the seat up for grabs.
Labor candidate Stephen Ryan, a former Newcastle Herald scribe turned barrister, has been busy knocking on doors in Lake Macquarie for weeks building the party (and Ryan) brand.
Labor won only 20 per cent of the primary vote in Piper's patch four years ago, just five points in front of the Libs, who should be working on their ground game leading up to 2026.
** Labor's vow to overhaul planning rules to promote music and night life appears pitched squarely at young voters.
Newcastle MP Tim Crakanthorp has been a champion of relaxing rules on late-night drinking and music in recent years.
Is Labor worried about a rising Green vote eroding its electoral power in inner-city seats with a large cohort of young people, especially given the absence of compulsory preference voting in NSW?
The Greens' stunning three-seat triumph in Brisbane at the federal election may be making Labor nervous about some of its city electorates in NSW.
Greens upper house MP Abigail Boyd stoked the fire in Newcastle this month, claiming the party could flip Crakanthorp's seat in 2026.
The election is on March 25.
