Elizabeth Santorum, wearing lei and a pleasant smile, sat patiently Monday afternoon as state Senate Minority Leader Sam Slom gave her a 45-minute briefing on Hawaii politics.
Honolulu rail. The Jones Act. High taxes. The Prepaid Health Care Act. And the grim fact that in this bluest of blue states, Slom — who supports former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, Elizabeth’s father, for president — is the only Republican in the Senate.
Modern presidential campaigns are waged mostly on television, the medium with the potential to reach the largest number of voters. But retail politics still has an important place, which is why Santorum’s daughter visited Slom and other Republicans at the state Capitol ahead of tonight’s first-ever Hawaii GOP presidential caucuses.
Matt Romney, the son of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, was at a rally for his father in Laie on Monday evening. Ronnie Paul, the son of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, has been in the islands talking with voters for several days.
“Hawaii has a chance to speak tomorrow,” Santorum, a student of political theory at the University of Dallas, said between stops at the Capitol. “It’s a pretty blue state, but there are a lot of Republicans here who want to speak out and have a say. And I think tomorrow is a chance for them to do just that and choose a conservative that can go up and strike the clear contrast we need to defeat this president in November and put America back on the path to prosperity.”
Matt Romney, an executive for a real estate firm who lives in San Diego, emphasized his father’s leadership and business experience. His appearance at the rally was intended to help drive interest in the caucuses among Mormons on the North Shore, home to Brigham Young University-Hawaii and the Laie temple. He and his father are Mormon.
“It’s the same message we’re delivering everywhere, and I think it does apply very well to Hawaii, too,” Romney said. “And that is that my dad is the best person to turn this economy around and to really lead us to prosperity again, and strength. And to do that without sacrificing our military. In these kind of times, he’s the guy we need.”
The elder Romney, who has been endorsed by former U.S. Rep. Charles Djou and former U.S. Rep. Pat Saiki, picked up more support from the local party establishment Monday when House Minority Leader Gene Ward (R, Kalama Valley-Hawaii Kai), former Senate Minority Leader Fred Hemmings and former Sen. Fred Rohlfing announced their endorsements.
Paul, meanwhile, was endorsed by the Hawaii Bar Owners Association, which has fought state regulation on small businesses, particularly the state’s smoking ban. The Texas congressman is the only candidate left in the field who has not won a primary or caucus.
Ronnie Paul, a retired chemical engineer who runs a small business in Texas, said he believes voters in Hawaii are independent-minded and tuned in to his father’s theme of individual liberty. He said his father is also the only candidate committed to reducing the federal deficit.
“If we don’t get serious about it, it’s going to impact everybody. It doesn’t matter what state you live in,” he said. “Nobody else — nobody in Washington, nobody else running — is serious about the debt. They say they are, but my dad has a proposal to cut a trillion dollars the first year to try and get close to balancing a budget. If you don’t get the budget balanced in a positive, you won’t decrease the deficit, and the deficit is what’s going to kill us.”
State Republican Party officials are expecting 5,000 to 10,000 voters to participate in the caucuses tonight. The vote will determine who will get 17 of the 20 delegates to the national convention in Tampa, Fla.
The candidates have concentrated on primaries today in Alabama and Mississippi, but they have not neglected Hawaii.
David Chang, state GOP chairman, said there is an incentive for all the candidates to compete here because delegates will be awarded proportionally.
“One of the key things is that it’s not winner-take-all, so if you’ve got a strong second or third place, you can still get some delegates out of it,” he said.
While about 45,000 voters have participated in recent GOP primaries, the minority party only has about 17,000 card-carrying members, similar to the Democratic Party of Hawaii, where official membership is far lower than the roughly 240,000 voters who backed Democrats in the 2008 primary.
Republicans hope that the caucuses will help the party expand, since voters have to join to participate in the caucuses.
Democrats saw a record surge in turnout for Hawaii-born Barack Obama in their presidential caucuses four years ago.
“It already has created a lot of energy,” said Andrew Walden, the state GOP’s presidential caucus chairman and the editor of the Hawaii Free Press, a conservative website. “We’re getting a lot of people who are going to be signing up as Republican Party members for the first time tomorrow, a lot of new Republican voters.”
