General elections aside, national politics will only ever be allocated a finite amount of space in the nation's Sunday papers. Saturday's "meeting the challenge" event, held at the London School of Economics, in which the four contenders attended the first hustings of the campaign, qualified for only a small proportion of it, writes Jody Dunn.
The political story of the weekend was the seemingly more pressing issue of George Galloway's rather questionable performance as a cat licking imaginary milk from Rula Lenska's hands on Celebrity Big Brother.
When I use the word questionable you'll understand that I refer to his judgment, rather than his ability in terms of feline character interpretation.
Quite how George will link this event to his stated intention to enter the house "for Palestine" is beyond me; but he will manage it somehow, of that I have no doubt.
The press coverage may not have been huge, but the event was covered extensively on television, certainly enough to make it clear that this is an election the media are taking seriously.
The hustings also made waves among the Liberal Democrat membership. It is clear that whatever the bookies are saying about the eventual winner, this is a race that is far from over.
I spoke to several people over the weekend who arrived at the event favouring one candidate and left supporting another.
With a party membership of over 73,000, the candidates will be spending their time over the next six weeks or so speaking directly to as many of them possible.
There are still many minds to be changed, and the candidates will be doing their best to change them. I can safely predict that there will be no cat costumes involved.
Simon Hughes, the current favourite of the betting man, is particularly good at engaging the grassroots membership, and of course they are the only voters to be courted in this election.
During the Hartlepool byelection I saw for myself Simon's ability to engage even the most potentially uninterested audience. I'll be honest and say that as a first time parliamentary candidate I started off finding the idea of walking in uninvited to a working men's club or approaching a group of teenagers at a bus shelter to be a daunting one.
What if they just didn't want to spend their Saturday evening talking to a stranger about politics?
Simon, however, showed me that it was possible to engage any audience, in any situation, whether an invited guest or not. He can do it brilliantly. He had groups of previously apathetic teenagers involved in a lively political debate within minutes, and it wasn't unusual to see them turn up at HQ on Monday morning offering to deliver leaflets!
The difference between that election and this one, is that in this election the whole electorate is automatically both interested and involved, so what each candidate says and does before the ballot papers are distributed will be of crucial importance.
Much as George Galloway's exploits are more likely to grab the headlines over the coming week, the Liberal Democrat membership is already gripped by its leadership campaign.
The next six weeks will see the four contenders attempting to gain the support and respect of their voters just as quickly as George Galloway is losing his own.
* Jody Dunn was the Liberal Democrat candidate for Hartlepool at last year's general election. Read her blogposts from Friday and Thursday last week
