MUCH will be said about Tony Windsor siding with Labor and helping Julia Gillard remain Prime Minister. Commentators will tell you his conservative New England electorate will run him over with a B-double. Hold your judgment.
He will lose some skin, to be sure, but Mr Windsor is a political phenomenon.
Forget the hot-headed rants about Mr Windsor signing his own political death warrant by pledging an electorate that Labor has a snowflake's chance in hell of winning, and which was National Party heartland until the Windsor bandwagon rolled in from state politics in 2001.
And don't take our word for it. Listen to those who have tried to unseat him, and those that have made a habit of voting for him. They have been voting independent in Tamworth for so long a generation of voters has matured knowing little else.
Bede Burke has a smile as broad as his cattleman's hat and a welcome as country as a potholed road. He was campaign manager for Tim Coates, the National candidate trounced by Mr Windsor on August 21. He admits to liking Mr Windsor but possesses ''differences in thinking'', and says most New England voters had expected Mr Windsor to side with Labor.
''The electorate is pretty forgiving where Tony is concerned,'' said Mr Burke, a farmer. ''It will have an effect on his support, but so long as he chooses to stand, he will be hard to beat.''
Mr Windsor wasn't scared into supporting the Coalition because it's not his style. Anyway, he regards both sides of the political fence as so risibly similar they're now almost indistinguishable.Tamworth's long-time mayor, James Treloar, has run as a Windsor-supported independent and is now back with the National Party.
''I think he genuinely struggled with it,'' Mr Treloar said. ''It's a tough call and it's not the last hard decision he'll have to make because the Greens will demand a lot of social policy change and the Coalition will just keep throwing these issues at him.''
Mr Treloar said Mr Windsor's choice would not go down well in an electorate that stood strongly with the National Party in Senate voting.
Christine Robertson, a Labor state upper house MP from the Tamworth district, said Mr Windsor was a true independent who established his base with votes from the ALP as well as the National Party. ''What a lot of people don't realise is that a lot of his support is from Labor,'' she said.
On the streets of Tamworth, however, most people spoken to yesterday said they supported Mr Windsor and his entitlement to choose which side got his nod.
''I didn't mind which way he went, so long as he went,'' said Liz Shelton, a real estate agent.
At 19, Aaron Sheehan has voted only for Mr Windsor. ''He's a decent bloke and I wouldn't change my vote whichever way he went.''
Jaye Gruber, 22, said she wanted Mr Windsor to choose an Abbott government, ''but I'd vote for him either way''.
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