HI-01

[Brittain33]

It's hard to respond to this without loud guffaws and the phrase "foolish mortals."

[Brittain33]

Yeah I don't see the accusation. Just think you way overestimate this stuff. And even if I scoffed at Gillibrand, it wasn't due to being white. I also scoffed at the idea that a minority MUST be appointed in order to win the primary. Honestly I doubt even most minorities care about stuff like that, just Al Sharpton types.

And what great GOP candidate can beat a white Democrat in HI-01? The GOP bench throughout all of Hawaii is simply pathetic to put it mildly.

A military man could win. Hawaii has great loyalty to the military.

Democrats have tried that strategy a million times and it almost never works to overcome partisan trends. When military men won, it wasn't because their military status was a major factor. The worst case of over-hyping I can recall was in the race to replace Joe Scarborough where people thought running a military D vs. a civilian R would make a difference in FL-1.

[Brittain33]

FL-1 is more Republican than HI-1 is Democratic.

Sure, but HI-1 is pretty Democratic, and a military strategy is designed to poach Republican voters, not Democratic voters. Even granted Hawaii's unique electorate. GA-8 has a military demographic and is significantly less Democratic than HI-1, but Rick Goddard turned into the Kay Barnes of the Republicans.

I'm not drawing an exact parallel between those districts by I am skeptical it will work.

[Brittain33]

BTW FL-01 is not more Republican than HI-01 is Democratic. I doubt McCain got over 70% in FL-01.

Old PVI was R+19 vs. D+7. Now, Bush-Cheney overperformed in Hawaii in '04; however, the '08 results were waaaaay more skewed by Obama's coming from Hawaii.

(But then again, McCain was military.)