As to HI being worse than CA, historically you're very correct. We'll see what happens in both states the next election to see if either has started to move in the right direction. Even if the DemocRATs pull it off here, hopefully it will be Harris, which is an improvement over Cayetano, who was a huge improvement over Waihee. The "better half" is a Californian born and raised - remembers Reagan's campaigns fondly.
We fell in love with Hawaii when the Army sent us here in 1994. Hope to remain when he ETSs in 2005 assuming he can find work. I worked on Orson Swindle's campaign in '96 (?) a bit. Would have really enjoyed working on Lingle's as well and plan to once my husband gets back from Korea this summer.