Romney sees Hawaii consolation after southern upset

HONOLULU: Hawaiians began voting late on Tuesday in Republican caucuses, shortly after surging White House hopeful Rick Santorum scored a surprise double win in Alabama and Mississippi.

Frontrunner Mitt Romney could only hope for a consolation victory on the Pacific island state, which is several hours behind the US mainland and where people watched the former Massachusetts governor lose in the South.

A win in Hawaii could have symbolic and psychological value for any of the Republican candidates, even despite the state long being used to being an electoral afterthought, said State Republican Party chair David Chang.

"Because the state is President (Barack) Obama's birthplace, winning Republican support here is kind of a moral victory" that could garner extra media attention, Chang said.

Romney supporters were "cautiously optimistic," Fritz Rohlfing, the frontrunner's chairman in Hawaii said, "and counting on an effective organization on the ground even though there was not a lot of money to spend."

"Winning Hawaii would mean a lot psychologically and show momentum," he added, before the Alabama and Mississippi results became clear.

Rohlfing, like Romney a Mormon, said support for the former Massachusetts governor from church members might be overblown, because as many as half of the state's 68,000 members were most likely to be Democrats.

Many Hawaii voters, however, were charmed by Romney's son Matt, and one said the son could teach the father a thing or two about connecting with people. "Those little stories you told, you should tell your dad to learn from you," said Meteliko Tuaileva, of Tongan extraction.

The younger Romney had described how his father saved him from drowning in the surf here when he was 16, and how he built a stand and hooked up a TV for Matt's wife Laurie when she was confined to bed before the birth of their twins. The Pacific island state sends 20 delegates to the Republican convention in August.

With the sixth highest ratio of Mormons in the United States, Hawaii has long been considered safe for Romney, also because he is the most moderate Republican candidate in a state where 72 percent backed Democrat Obama in 2008.

Party chair Chang estimated that 5,000 to 10,000 people will show up to choose 17 of the 20 national convention delegates. Chang and two other party leaders fill the other spots.