You may have heard that we are suddenly a battleground state, and the two parties certainly think so. In mid-October the Hawai’i Poll showed Bush ahead with 43.3% to 42.6% for Kerry and 12% Undecided. (The mysterious Other got 2%). Another poll from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin taken about the same time showed Bush at 46%, Kerry at 45%, and 9% Undecided. This caught the local pols completely by surprise. Sure, we elected a Republican Governor two years ago, but she was the first member of her party who’d won that race since the 1950s, and nobody expected that that trend would continue.

The results of these polls have galvanized both parties. On Friday we saw Al Gore and Alexandra Kerry arrive to stump for Kerry, and last night Cheney made a quick stop to buck up the Republicans. In addition, our local TV stations have suddenly reaped a bonanza of political ad sales. I’ve seen ads from MoveOn, the RNC, the DNC, AFSCME and the Kerry campaign. Since we had not been thought to be “in play” until now, we’d only been seeing local political ads on our screens, mostly for the two House seats and one Senate seat, but also for the Honolulu Mayor’s race. Now we know what all the folks in Iowa, Michigan, Ohio and all the other swing states have been living with for months.

There has also been a sudden rise in “robo-calls,” those pre-recorded messages from national party luminaries. I got two from General Wes Clark yesterday and one from Rudy Giuliani on Saturday. We were already getting these for local races.

We had an early absentee voting period from October 19-30, and by all accounts roughly one in five voters took advantage of it to walk in and cast a ballot early. That should have an impact on the length of lines at polling places tomorrow, unless turnout is huge. I did not take advantage of that opportunity, so I’ll be reporting from the ground tomorrow. Given the time zones (we’re five hours behind the East Coast and two behind the West) and the fact that the polls don’t close till 6:00pm, we may be important for the electoral vote count, or we may be (as usual) inconsequential.