Phil Goff may want to employ Jim Bolger's infamous line from the 90s -'bugger the pollsters'.
Because the people really have spoken in tonight's
3 News Reid Research Poll - and for Goff and Labour it's enough to make them choke.
National is coasting at 59.9 percent. It is up 1.8 percent on our last poll - and at the same level recorded way back in February when Key was enjoying his summer love fest with voters.
But so much has happened since then (think English, Worth, job losses, RWC, ACC) and Labour hasn't been able to turn it into real support from voters.
Labour is 27.2 percent, and Goff and his MPs always look for comfort by comparing this kind of number with the numbers Helen Clark used to register in 1995.
She was at 2 percent personally and the party was at 16 percent. So compared to Clark's dark days, Goff is creaming it.
But he just can't get near Key and National. Key is at 55 percent in the preferred Prime Minister rankings. He's in outer space compared to Goff. Goff is at 4.7 and he has gone down from 6.5.
Why? It seems pretty simple if you dig deeper into tonight's
poll.
Voters think Key has a sense of humour, they think he has a degree of warmth, they think he can laugh at himself, they think he can admit when he is wrong, they think he is reasonably honest, they think he is down to earth.
National needs to bottle this up - because it won't last forever and Key and his Government certainly have their faults.
His Government is loose and at times reckless. It's burning political capital like Scott Dixon burns rubber.
Key is no overbearing micro-manager like Helen Clark. He trusts some of his Ministers to get on with the job - when some of them aren't up to it.
Privately, some National MPs have told me Murray McCully is the man in the middle of this fiasco over the Rugby World Cup TV rights. Rather than seek a solution, McCully was apparently angry, abrasive and confrontational with his Maori Party colleagues.
If McCully had been fully in charge of his portfolio from the start it would never have become the debacle that it did. But McCully isn't the only one to blame - though he is central.
Prime Ministers can't run everything - but this RWC event is huge - Key is also the Tourism Minister - he needed to be closer to the action.
He should take a lesson out of this - can he trust all his Ministers? But in a perverse way voters will probably reward him for 'sorting' it out on Wednesday when he got all the parties together in a joint bid - and let Maori TV lead it - which they will argue is 'mana-enhancing'.
So sure, once you add in Nick Smith's ACC levy increases, his crazy and insensitive meltdown over the terminally ill and his inability to get the support to pass the levy hikes, then yes, National had a train wreck of a week.
But our poll shows voters can be forgiving of a reasonably rough winter - and in my view it's because of one thing - Key. Voters have warmed to him. Sure, he mangles his English at times - so do most people - so in that sense maybe he's relatively normal.
And Goff? Robotic, stiff, invisible, boring, wooden, been around too long? Probably. But who else does Labour have and will it panic?
Most senior Labour MPs I have spoken too won't enter into an off-record discussion about Goff's future, saying it's ridiculous to discuss it because he will fight the 2011 election.
There are other MPs, not so senior, but reasonably savvy - who have told me Goff is the 'slaughter-horse' for 2011, and then the real leadership fight begins. One MP told me Goff is Labour's Bill English of 2002. (National 20.93 percent anyone?)
But what if Labour panics?
Who are the options? King did ok when Goff was hob-knobbing in the States but she doesn't want the job - and is yesterday's generation.
David Cunliffe? Not well liked enough within his own caucus.
Trevor Mallard - tough and controversial. A bloke's bloke. Not Prime Minister material. Been done for assault. Working hard. Still widely respected in the caucus.
Shane Jones? Smart. Aloof and down to earth at the same time if that's possible, Maori and Pakeha, can be cutting in Parliament, regarded as lazy by some of his colleagues. Don't count him out.
So tonight's poll will make sizzling reading for National MPs as they head into the summer BBQ season.
And for Labour ... did I mention MPs and BBQs?