ONLY time will tell if Sam Romano's overtly combative approach to campaigning for the federal election will actually be a winner at the ballot box. But we doubt it.
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The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers candidate has been [by far] the most aggressive campaigner so far in Calare and he appears to have made it his personal mission to bait the sitting member, the Nationals' Andrew Gee, at every opportunity.
A press release to local media on Wednesday was the most offensive outburst so far, calling Mr Gee lazy and disinterested and outrageously laying the blame for the Central West's tragic suicide figures at the feet of the MP.
Mr Gee has his faults, but this latest smear by Mr Romano is beyond the pale.
Mr Romano, an Orange councillor, entered the race for Calare very late and gave himself just a few weeks to build a profile.
But it's disappointing that this is how he has chosen to introduce himself to the thousands of voters across Calare who had neither seen nor heard of him a month ago, and it will be the ballot box that decides the success or failure of that approach.
The great tragedy is that Calare could greatly benefit from the arrival of a third genuine candidate.
The Nationals, as a party, and Mr Gee, as an individual, are not well loved by large sections of the community while Labor's Jess Jennings has run twice for the seat without ever threatening to win it.
Plenty of voters are looking for an alternative to the major parties and, as Phil Donato has shown in Orange, a well-spoken and even-headed SFF candidate can garner plenty of support.
Unfortunately - and curiously - Mr Romano [or his campaign advisers] have taken a leaf out of a very different playbook.
They have run an overwhelmingly negative campaign that does a disservice to both their party and the voters of Calare.
If the current polls are correct, the people of Calare are likely to wake on May 19 represented by an MP who finds himself on the opposition benches.
And if that's the case, the electorate's best hope of attracting federal funding for the next three years will be if Calare can somehow find itself near the marginal middle of the election pendulum.
Strong opposition from Dr Jennings and Mr Romano could still achieve that. But cheap political point-scoring and juvenile name-calling won't.
