Some local politicians are trying to emulate Barack Obama's success on the Internet, with mixed results.

Mayor Mufi Hannemann has staked out a presence on MySpace (myspace.com/mufihan nemann), a social networking site that attracts the young, which would explain why the picture in the logo looks like his high school graduation shot. The mayor, 54, describes himself as a 6-foot-7 Pacific Islander and a Leo.

I'm not astrologically akamai, so I had to look up a Leo's traits (Positive: a born leader, an entertainer, generous and warmhearted, faithful and loving; Negative: pompous and patronizing, bossy and interfering, dogmatic and intolerant). In short, a musical teddy bear with megalomaniacal tendencies.

You can see pictures of Hannemann with former Gov. George Ariyoshi when he was in his Elvis phase and former President Bush when he was in his Young Republican phase.

He's attracted 32 MySpace friends so far.

Only one comment has been posted, from a friend called "*THE SH*T*" who says, "WAs up MR.H good job! it's the tall kid you meet at dole with my other friend's."

While Hannemann works on his MySpace image, U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie has discovered Twitter (twitter.com/neilabercrombie), a mini-blogging service that allows you to update people on what you're doing in 140 characters or less.

Of course, the loquacious Abercrombie can't hold his "tweets" to such a tight word limit, and he's still on the steep side of the learning curve trying to post via Jott.com, another new-age marvel that allows you to speak your posting into your cell phone.

Unfortunately, they apparently haven't worked out the bugs well enough to accurately decipher Abercrombie's booming voice, which produces confounding typos: