By Jerry Burris
Advertiser Editorial Editor

How much is an early lead in the polls worth to a political candidate in Hawai'i?

Not much, if you ask "Govs." Frank Fasi, Pat Saiki or Cec Heftel. Same answer from re-elected Honolulu Mayor Eileen Anderson or "U. S. Sen." Patricia Saiki.

In fact, even "Gov." Linda Lingle thinks an early lead in the polls is hardly what it is cracked up to be.

All of these candidates, and more, were early leaders in the polls over the years, only to see their campaigns falter in the end.

Fasi was supposed to beat George Ariyoshi for governor. He didn't. Saiki was supposed to win her bids for governor and for U.S. senator. In both cases nada. Eileen Anderson was supposed to handily win re-election as mayor over Fasi, but she didn't. Saiki looked strong against a faltering Sen. Dan Akaka, but in the end, Akaka surged ahead.

Lingle looked unstoppable against Ben Cayetano four years ago. And Heftel, who had what appeared to be an insurmountable lead in 1986, collapsed in the final weeks of his campaign and lost to John Waihee.

All of this is simply by way of saying that Jeremy Harris' explanation that he dropped out of this year's campaign for governor because he was trailing in the polls has to be taken with a grain of salt.

True, Harris' fall from the political pinnacle he held earlier in the year had to have been disturbing. But Harris is experienced enough to know that early campaign poll numbers don't mean an awful lot. If everyone who trailed in the polls at this point in a campaign year had folded, Hawai'i's political landscape would be entirely different.

What is happening is that voters aren't willing to firmly make up their minds too early. They'll say whom they favor if a pollster presses, but clearly they reserve their right to change their minds.

So Harris' substantial — but not overwhelming — slide in the polls following his struggles with the Campaign Spending Commission, the prosecutor and the City Council Budget Committee, should not have been the end of the world.

Perhaps he was less worried about a temporary dip in the polls than about greater vulnerability later on. Hawai'i elections have often presented an unusual phenomenon: Candidates who trail throughout most of the campaign suddenly surge in the end. It happened dramatically with Waihee against Heftel, and with Akaka against Saiki.

Something happens in the final weeks of the campaign. Part of it is the sudden rise of the famous Democratic grassroots "sparrows," the invisible army of voters who lie hidden in the fields until the final days when they rise up en masse to vote.

Perhaps it is the well-oiled system of telephone banks operated by the unions, launching get-out-the-vote blitzes that fluff up the image of their favored candidate and take down the image of the opponent.

Maybe it is simply that, in the end, Hawai'i voters tend to retreat back to the familiar when they get into the voting booths.

Whatever it is, something seems to happen. And Harris might have suspected that this year, something was going to happen to him.