Hawaii, Alaska embrace campaign connections

Hawaii delegates Marlene Hapai and Adam Deguire sported Hawaiian shirts and leis at the GOP convention in St. Paul. (John Tlumacki/Globe Staff)

ST. PAUL - They have long been the far-flung afterthoughts of American politics, the late additions to the union - one freezing, one sun-drenched - both of them exotic enough to attract tourists but too distant for presidential campaigns to pay them much attention.

Alaska and Hawaii's time has finally arrived this year, with each state boasting a claim on the presidential tickets. The presence of Hawaii-born Barack Obama as the Democratic presidential nominee, and Alaska's Governor Sarah Palin as the GOP vice presidential pick, has given both states a chance to dispel what they view as unfair stereotypes of the nation's 50th and 49th states.

Many mainlanders, the Hawaii delegates at the Republican National Convention here complain, see the island state as a foreign country, filled with hula dancers and vacationers. "Our offices open at 8 a.m.," said Barbara Marumoto, a state representative and Hawaii delegate. "We don't all lie on the beach all day."

"The whole thing is just asinine," Representative Neil Abercrombie, Democrat of Hawaii, said of his state's "foreign" image. "We sent 18 Olympic athletes to Beijing, and 12 came back with medals. Who's the all-American state?"

And if mainland America's view of Hawaii is loosely based on "Hawaii Five-0," the 1960s and '70s crime drama about a fictional Hawaiian police department, then Alaskans are fighting the stereotypes presented in "Northern Exposure," a 1990s dramedy of a bunch of eccentrics who eat only what they shoot and seem to have no intellectual or emotional connection to what Alaskans call the "lower 48."

In fact, 70 percent of Alaskans live in urban areas, and because residents of The Last Frontier State rely heavily on federal aid, "we pay attention to national politics more than people in other states," said Jerry McBeath, a political science professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. "We don't live in igloos," he said.

While apparently dramatically different to mainland Americans, Hawaii and Alaska have much in common, analysts in both states say, and the Washington representatives in the two states frequently back each other up on legislation.

Both have indigenous populations - and are the only two states whose indigenous populations are not Native Americans. Both must import many goods, making certain products in each state (cereal in Hawaii, for example, and milk in Alaska) horrifically expensive. Both rely on tourism to bolster their economies, and there exists a whole class of hospitality workers who divide their work years between Alaska and Hawaii.

In Washington, Alaska and Hawaii lawmakers have substantial power, largely driven by the seniority of their delegations, and make out better than any other states in terms of federal "earmarks," according to Steve Ellis, executive vice president of the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense.

While Hawaii has long been reliably Democratic, and Alaska hard-core Republican, the states stick together. Democratic Hawaii Senator Daniel K. Inouye and Alaska GOP senator Ted Stevens have both held high-ranking positions on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and the team - assisted by the rest of the two delegations - has secured large amounts of money. In fiscal year 2008, Alaska won $506 per capita in earmarks, while Hawaii secured $226 per capita, Ellis said. Massachusetts, meanwhile, got $34 per capita in earmarks.

Natives of both states hope that the campaign-driven media attention will help mainlanders understand them better. But so far it hasn't helped, said Stephen Haycox, a history professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Obama has barely visited Hawaii except to go on vacation - and then was chastised by a national commentator for choosing "exotic" Hawaii instead of, for example, Myrtle Beach. The delegates here - while eager to present their state as just like the rest of the country - are all dressed in Hawaiian shirts and are wearing flower leis.

And Alaska? Haycox noted the names of Palin's children in commenting: "I suppose the perception is that people here are a wee bit odd. . . . But with kids with names like Bristol, Willow and Piper, I think it's going to confirm all the images about Alaska."