Hawaii Hearts Hillary?

I always thought it was kind of odd to just assume that Hawaii would caucus for Barack Obama because he grew up there. He hasn't lived there, to my knowledge, in at least 25 years, and considering how the Asian vote went so strong for Hillary in California, it seemed premature. And there's been no polling, none, in Hawaii. And I guess Chelsea just went out there for the next 3 days.

Barron Young-Smith did a little research, and it's anecdotal, but that looks to me like it'll be a very close race, even if caucus goers aren't real people as Bill Clinton says.

...almost 60% of Hawaiians are Asian Americans--as Isaac pointed out, by far the most anti-Obama demographic in the United States in the primaries thus far. And Hawaii's Democratic caucus is closed, which means an even higher Asian percentage among those eligible to vote for Hillary or Obama--not to mention that Hawaii's Democrats are notorious machine politicians, closely tied to the military and to huge unions that are officially in the tank for Clinton [...]

I asked [the author's grandfather] about the candidates. He supports Hillary because she has more experience, and explains that Obama's been doing a good job raising money in Hawaii--especially among "haoles" (pron. "howlies," a common Hawaiian pejorative for white people) who he says have been flocking to Hawaii's still-booming real-estate market (note: an unverified assertion).

Furthermore, he says, Hawaii's Democratic Party has been controlled by the Japanese since the 1960s, and influential Japanese-American Senator Daniel Inouye is making a high-profile trip from Washington, D.C to stump for Hillary. This is big news.

My follow-up call to a local expert, Ira Rohter from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, reveals that the Democratic establishment is aggressively working to inoculate the state against Obama--priming their warhorses, the two biggest government unions, for a major turnout effort and bringing professional organizers from the mainland.

During the 2004 primaries, Dennis Kucinich apparently caught them by surprise, coming in second place with the help of left-wing progressive organizers. Now warned, they've vowed to prevent a repeat performance by Obama. They're betting their manpower advantage will overcome Obama's effort to turn out young Hawaiians, who are legendarily apathetic about voting. Professor Rohter speculates that Hillary thinks she at has at least a chance to embarrass Obama by beating him in his home state. He says Obama, who is in Seattle today, may have to consider flying to Hawaii and making a dramatic appearance to galvanize support.

This isn't to say that Obama is just relying on young people. He's also trying to piggyback on the Kucinich progressives and mobilizing his former alumni network at Punahou--the elite private school he attended in his teens. In Hawaii, elite schools like Punahou and the Kamehameha schools provide instant connections to powerful families, giving their alumni an automatic leg up if they want to enter politics. And, as always, Obama's campaign has focused on community organization in a way that Hillary's doesn't even attempt to do. "They're doing all the right things," Rohter, a campaign-organization junkie, tells me.

My understanding was that Kucinich did well there because he actually bothered to campaign in the state.

Obama attended Punahou, so obviously he still has some friends in the Hawaiian establishment. But it really doesn't seem to me like a slam-dunk, and the media is kind of lazily assuming that it will be. They also are likely not to stay up late enough next Tuesday to even report this, either.

UPDATE: Not all bad for Obama, of course: a couple black lawmakers are talking about switching to him, including the legendary John Lewis, which would be huge... by the way, the Lewis switch is confirmed in the New York Times:

Representative John Lewis, an elder statesman from the civil rights era and one of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s most prominent black supporters, said Thursday night that he planned to cast his vote as a superdelegate for Senator Barack Obama in hopes of preventing a fight at the Democratic convention.

“In recent days, there is a sense of movement and a sense of spirit,” said Mr. Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who endorsed Mrs. Clinton last fall. “Something is happening in America, and people are prepared and ready to make that great leap.”

Mr. Lewis, who carries great influence among other members of Congress, disclosed his decision in an interview in which he said that as a superdelegate, he could not go against the wishes of the voters of his district, who overwhelmingly supported Mr. Obama.

There is approximately no chance of a floor fight at the convention. Someone's going to win this at the ballot box. The DNC is not going to actively participate in its own destruction.