Hawaiians Flood Polls for Obama

HONOLULU — Across the city last night, most Hawaiians said they had never seen anything like it. Supporters of Sen. Barack Obama crowded into school auditoriums with lines that snaked around the buildings. Precincts couldn't keep registration forms in stock. "We ran out of democratic registration forms four times," said Manny Quinones, 30, one precinct leader. State caucus leaders were expecting 10,000 to 12,000 voters—and got as many as 20,000. Late into the night, voters were still standing in line.

"The last time I experienced anything close to this was the first state election, when voter turnout was 85 percent," Hawaii Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye, a Hillary Clinton supporter, told U.S. News. That was the year Hawaii gained its statehood, in 1959. Last night, Inouye stood in line for one hour and 45 minutes. It was the first time in 40 years that he returned from Washington for the caucuses.

At the state's Democratic Party headquarters, U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie borrowed a lei from his wife, Nancie Caraway, a political theorist, before taking the podium to celebrate Obama's large win. He said turnout was so great that at a certain point "we went to the honor system. There was just no other way."

Caraway said that there were upwards of 5,000 people in her polling station. "And it was hot," she added. "I was worried." But she described the turnout as inspirational. "I'm a postmodernist cynic," she said. "This is a new page in American political culture."

Quinones said that he was an independent and then a Hillary Clinton supporter. He likes Ron Paul as well. "He has awesome ideas, but he could never get them through. They would be wasted years." He has settled on Obama who, many here say, best represents the aloha spirit, what Hawaiians describe as a diversity that defines rather than divides the state. He said Obama has inspired others as well. "At the caucus, over 40 people over the age of 40 came up to me to say that they had never voted and asking how to register."

Abercrombie, who attended college in Hawaii with Obama's father, invoked an analogy familiar to the residents of this island state. "We know about waves here in Hawaii," he told U.S. News. "Those great waves come, and they're there to be ridden."