Hirono’s facing a hard landing

The nervousness must be telling in the Mazie Hirono campaign headquarters.

David Shapiro in this morning’s SA laid it out:

“Hirono has been a notoriously weak closer in previous campaigns, with voters appearing to like her less the more they see.”

That’s because there’s not much to see.

When she is in office, the public never hears from her.

Only when it’s re-election time or a new political race does she come out of her den.

Her emails are mostly requests for money and the same tired story of her childhood.

When she announced a while back she would do a TV debate with Ed case, we figured her internal polls were showing him catching up.

That now looks to be true.

As Shapiro points out – Hirono always starts out strong and fades in the home stretch.

Political wisdom is you find a message that resonates with the voter and stick with it all the way.

You change the words slightly for each audience but the message stays firm.

That’s called staying on message.

In Hirono’s case, there is no message.

No call to arms, or lofty detailed plan that paints a vision of what she would do if elected.

One can not run a campaign on the same story of your mother and a non-existent record of accomplishment.

Hirono has a loyal fan base, but it tends to wander away from her as each election draws near.

Being Dan Inouye’s chosen one is no longer any guarantee of victory.