One of the trends to watch closely this year as the election season heats up will be the role of the parties, mostly the dominant Democratic and Republican parties.

There are signs the parties are moving to "professionalize" themselves, with sophisticated candidate services and each making an effort to produce a unified message.

Traditionally, the political parties in Hawai'i have been dominated by powerful personalities, both in the GOP and with the Democrats. What organization they had was focused on the needs of leaders of the moment.

This was true as far back as the days of John A. Burns, who held the Democratic Party under his personal control and as recently as just a few years ago, when Linda Lingle used her leadership of the Republican Party to keep her political prominence and influence alive for a successful gubernatorial run.

To an uncommon degree, the stakes this election year are at the state Legislature, where the Republicans will once again try to break the Democratic stranglehold on power.

Democrats, who recognize they face an uphill fight against a well-funded and popular Lingle in her reelection bid, know they have to maintain strength of numbers in both the House and Senate if they wish to remain viable players.

Enter the parties, which can offer technical, political and even some financial help to candidates for the House and Senate. There will be candidate training sessions, recruitment drives and other efforts aimed at producing a critical mass of candidates.

As part of this effort, both sides will be tempted to bring in outside "experts" to help with this work. This is understandable, and the use of consultants is a time-honored part of politics, both here and across the Mainland.

But there are dangers here. Sometimes consultants bring with them political styles or ideas that might make sense elsewhere but do not fit with an Island style of doing things.

We saw this two years ago, when outside consultants produced so-called "hit piece" mailers for candidates that were sent to voters in some districts.

These slick brochures left a sour taste in the mouths of some voters, who prefer to keep their politics on a higher plane.

Another danger is accepting boilerplate campaign themes or slogans that may be in fact an odd fit locally. For instance, campaigns built around dislike or antagonism for those in office have had some success in some jurisdictions.

But people in Hawai'i, by and large, still hold their elected representatives in relatively high esteem. Yes, they complain, mutter and grouse, but in the end they tend to return incumbents to office.

So expect to hear a lot this year from Sam Aiona, the Republican chairman, and Brickwood Galuteria, the Democratic chairman, and their staffs.

While Hawai'i politics ultimately always will be about personality, 2006 might be a year when it is far more than usual about party as well.

Reach Jerry Burris at jburris@honoluluadvertiser.com.