Andy Smith, Gov. Linda Lingle's liaison in West Hawai'i, is the type of candidate state Republicans are looking for to compete with majority Democrats.

With his youthful energy and idealism — he runs an organization that helps high-school athletes get college scholarships — Smith has a realistic chance for an open seat in conservative-leaning state House District 6 on the Big Island.

"I think people tend to look at the candidate and who can represent them better on the state level," said Smith, who lives in Kailua-Kona, regarding the challenges of campaigning as a Republican. "That's what I'm concerned about right now, what's happening right here in our backyard.

"We have tort reform — medical malpractice reform — we have a renewable energy policy that we want to pass, and people are still talking about local school boards, they still want to pass local school boards."

But the problem for Republicans is they have few candidates like Smith. In a local political climate that may again be influenced by national political trends, the state GOP could have difficulty even holding their marginal numbers in the House and Senate.

State House and Senate elections are mostly driven by local issues, but in both 2004 and 2006, national politics proved costly to Republicans. With U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois the potential Democratic nominee for president, a surge of new voters drawn in part by the novelty of a Hawai'i-born candidate could help Democrats down the ballot.

Lingle, speaking to Republican delegates yesterday at the close of the state GOP convention in Waikiki, was optimistic that U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona — the presumptive Republican presidential nominee — can perform well in Hawai'i and about the potential for Republicans to make gains at the Legislature.

There are seven Republicans in the House and four in the Senate, with one — state Sen. Paul Whalen, R-3rd (Kohala, Kona, Ka'u) — not running for re-election this year.

Although Republicans have lost seats since Lingle became the first Republican governor in four decades in 2002, some of those losses can be attributed to factors that go beyond local politics.

In 2004, Democrats launched a late rally for U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts in the Islands after public-opinion polls showed President Bush might have a chance to take the traditionally blue state. The get-out-the-vote drive for Kerry indirectly helped other Democratic candidates.

In 2006, Democratic leaders expected to lose seats because of Lingle's popular re-election campaign, but Democrats tapped into the national disapproval of Bush and the war in Iraq and successfully linked Republican candidates to the president.

Lingle told Republicans yesterday that the GOP needs to do better at closing in the final days before the election.

"We're not getting smashed out there by any means," Lingle said. "It's not that the other side's philosophy is winning the day or we didn't have good candidates. It's that little margin that we're just not getting that final punch at the end."

The governor, a swimmer, used the analogy of "going hard into the wall."

Lingle is also planning a new leadership academy that will help the party identify and groom young Republicans for future roles.

While Obama has brought many new Democrats into politics this year, some Republicans believe McCain, with his inspirational life story as a Navy pilot and prisoner-of-war in Vietnam and his political reputation as a maverick, can appeal to many in the Islands.

McCain could pull strong support from the state's large military community and could attract some of the moderate Democrats and independents who have been voting for Lingle.

State Rep. Kymberly Pine, R-43rd ('Ewa Beach, Iroquois Point, Pu'uloa), said she considered supporting Obama at first but, with her husband serving in the military, turned to McCain because of his experience.

"The person who will end this war the right way and keep my husband safe is McCain," Pine said. "And, I think, the more people look into McCain, they are going to realize that he is somebody who was in the worst place of a war — as someone who was a prisoner-of-war — and will want to end this war as fast as possible, because he remembers how bad it can get for our soldiers and our local men and women."

McCain has said that the United States should remain in Iraq until the country is stable and the Iraqi people are capable of governing themselves. Obama has said he would immediately begin to withdraw U.S. troops with the goal of removing all combat brigades within 16 months, leaving a smaller force of troops to protect the U.S. Embassy and diplomats.

While McCain may be helpful, Kay Ghean, the Maui County Republican chair, said state Republican candidates have to speak to local issues such as access to healthcare and state spending on charter schools as alternatives to traditional public schools.

"Those are the kind of things that touch peoples' hearts," said Ghean, who believes the state's rejection of a second hospital on Maui, in particular, could resonate with Neighbor Island voters who sometimes have to travel to O'ahu for medical care.

But the state House and Senate map looks daunting for the GOP.

Other than West Hawai'i's House District 6, the two other open seats — House District 1 in north Hilo and House District 35 in Pearl City — are in solidly Democratic territory. Republicans have not yet identified particularly strong candidates in the few GOP-leaning districts now held by Democrats or in several swing districts where the party is potentially competitive.

In the Senate, former state labor negotiator Ted Hong will compete with state Rep. Dwight Takamine, D-1st (Kohala, Hamakua, N. Hilo), for an open seat in Senate District 1 on the northeast side of the Big Island.

But state Rep. Josh Green, D-6th (N. Kona, Keauhou, Kailua-Kona), is favored to take the open seat in West Hawai'i vacated by Whalen, the only seat now held by a Republican on the Neighbor Islands.

The Republican presence in the Senate could shrink further if state Sen. Gordon Trimble, R-12th (Waikiki, Ala Moana, Downtown), is unable to hold his seat in what had been safely Republican territory until the past few election cycles. Brickwood Galuteria, a radio host and former Democratic Party of Hawai'i chairman, is running in the Democratic primary.

Trimble appealed to Republicans yesterday at the state convention for help. "It will be an exciting race," he said afterward. "It will draw people in."