HONOLULU, Hawaii, Oct 29 (AFP) - US Vice President Dick Cheney and his Democratic predecessor, Al Gore, Friday targeted Hawaii voters after the state became a last-minute battleground in the US presidential campaign.
Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry's daughter, Alexandra, was also stumping for her father in Hawaii this weekend after polls showed Kerry and President George W. Bush in a dead heat in the traditionally Democratic state ahead of Tuesday's election.
"With less than a week before the November 2 election, Democrats are not taking anything for granted and will continue to campaign nationwide," Kerry's campaign said in a statement.
The political proxies are battling to secure the usually politically-insignificant 50th US state's four electoral college votes, which suddenly appeared to be up for grabs just days ahead of one of the tightest presidential elections in years.
A Honolulu Advertiser poll on October 23 showed Bush with 43.3 percent support and Kerry with 42.6 percent, while a second poll last Sunday gave Kerry 46 percent support to 45 percent.
Since it became the United States' newest state in 1959, the palm tree-laced islands have only swung towards a Republican presidential candidate twice: in 1972 for Richard Nixon and 1984 for Ronald Reagan.
On Friday, Gore and Alexandra Kerry were due to appear together at a rally for Filipinos at a working-class Honolulu high school.
The Kerry campaign is hoping to dent Bush's strong support in Hawaii's burgeoning Filipino community.
On Saturday, Alexandra Kerry will take part in a traditional and honored form of political advertising in a state where billboards are banned: she will stand by the side of the road under a palm tree brandishing a small cardboard sign backing her father and his running mate John Edwards.
Cheney hits the tropical paradise turned unexpected electoral catfight Sunday when he will appear at a Republican rally at the Hawaii Convention Center in the main city of Honolulu.
Both Republicans and Democrats suddenly began flooding the Hawaiian airwaves with a wave political ads not seen here for years as the campaigns reserved their spending for traditional battleground states.
And former US president Bill Clinton gave satellite-link interviews with Hawaii-based reporters on Wednesday to plug Kerry's campaign in the state which will be the last in the nation to cast its votes on November 2.
Just one week ago, Kerry backers in Hawaii were spending their energy making telephone calls to mainland states where the battle between the candidates seemed tightest, including Colorado.
All that has changed dramatically, with Democratic supporters suddenly finding themselves in the front lines of the battle for the White House.
Lynne Johnson, a musicology doctoral student at the University of Hawaii, who has been manning the phones at Kerry-Edwards headquarters in Honolulu, said she would still head to Colorado to help get out the vote.
"I just figured that if Kerry lost by three votes, and I could have gotten four little old ladies to the polls in Colorado and made the difference, I would never forgive myself," Thompson said.
"Now I just hope those four old ladies don't live in Honolulu," she mused.
But the visits from the mainland US political heavyweights to the isolated islands pose unexpected challenges.
Fiercely proud Hawaiians are watching to see if Cheney, Gore or Alexandra Kerry will mangle tongue-twisting Hawaiian words or tuck into exotic island delicacies that may seem odd to them.
Media speculated on whether any of the trio of stumpers would venture to eat poi, the pasty purple product of the taro plant, or whether they might tuck into lau-lau, a meat course wrapped in ti leaves.
In addition, the canidates are likely to be senstive to being photographed on Waikiki's white-sand beaches while some mainland Americans are warding off snowstorms, political observers noted.
10/29/2004 19:44 GMT - AFP