Too soon to say who will become governor

In the Sept. 24 issue of The Honolulu Advertiser, a front page story headline stated that the Democrat's stronghold were clearly shifting to Linda Lingle. This may be true, looking only at the statistics. Cayetano received only 96,000 votes in the primary, while Lingle took in 109,000.

Howeever, the problem with this line of thinking is that Hawaii's primaries are single-party only. To assume that Lingle is more popular than Cayetano when they weren't even competing is poor reasoning.

Rather, let it be concluded that more people were interested in the Republican race between Lingle and Fasi.

Fasi received 49,000 votes, roughly half of Lingle's total. The assumption that there were only truly loyal Republicans in this crowd is erroneous.

In a single-party primary, opposition party voters will try to swing the vote in the weaker candidate's favor. In this case, it was to Cayetano's interest that his supporters vote for Fasi in the primary.

So before thinking the governor's race has already been decided, consider who really comprises Fasi's voters. They are the ones who will make a difference.