Clegg visits Cable Factory...
"It will be a good photocall" the PR assured me, "Nick Clegg's visiting a cable factory."
Now there's a thought. The Lib Dem Chancellor has a rare ability to charm the public. What if they have really found a factory that can make Cables?
No longer the smaller party, Vince could be everywhere. Straight talking the same message from Brighton to Dundee.
The reality was rather more straightforward.
Prysmian Cables is a manufacturer of copper and fibre-optic telecom cables. They're the sort of green business Lib Dems believe we could do more to encourage and Nick Clegg had stopped here on a flying visit to launch the South of England Lib Dem election campaign.
We asked about the small issue of all those air miles Nick was going to clock up over the next four weeks.
(Lib Dem transport policy, you may know, is to tax flights 'per plane' as well as a surcharge on all domestic flights where you make the same trip in less than six hours on the train)
Mr Clegg pointed out that the party had signed up to make various "carbon offset" payments but actually seemed rather pleased that he now had the chance to criss cross the country rather than rely on smaller pockets of support.
The Eastleigh MP Chris Huhne was at his side. He ran Clegg very closely for the leadership of the party - couldn't he have done the launch?
Nick made a speech and we had a good look at the cables - they were making yellow ones that day, by co-incidence.
The talk has been all about the economy. One third of the cables are exported, and the bosses here worry that cheap labour abroad means they're more expensive. Yes a hike in National Insurance doesn't help.
But many of the workers warmed to meeting the Lib Dem leader up close, and gave him a couple of decent rounds of applause as he spoke to them from the top of an upturned drum.
They called it a flying visit, but it was really more of a swoop. The Liberal Democrat bird dropping into Eastleigh en route from Scotland to Bristol.
In the South of England the Lib Dems are eyeing up target seats in Dorset, Guildford, Bournemouth and Reading. They need to defend Romsey in Hampshire where Sandra Gidley has a majority of just 125. In Eastleigh Chris Huhne himself has a majority below a thousand.
Nick Clegg will try hard to be everywhere. But what if there really was a factory that could knock out another quick cohort of his popular Chancellor?
Welcome to the hustings! I'm Peter Henley, the BBC's political reporter in the south of England. From parish councils in Sussex, to European politics in Oxford, this is the blog for you. 
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