"Senator Kerry's got a good program for Hawai'i and a good program for America and I think the more people know about it, the more likely we are to prevail there," Clinton told KHON-TV2.

The interviews are part of a coordinated effort by Democrats on behalf of Kerry in Hawai'i after polls released over the weekend found that the presidential race was deadlocked.

The Democratic National Committee has put $200,000 into its Hawai'i advertising and two independent liberal groups have also purchased television and radio ads for the Massachusetts Democrat, a flurry of last-minute activity in a state that has only voted for Republican presidential candidates twice since statehood.

Clinton, who was popular in the Islands during his presidency and has enjoyed rounds of golf with Hawai'i governors, appeared here in person for Democrat Mazie Hirono when she ran for governor in 2002. Hirono lost to Linda Lingle, a Republican who has campaigned both here and on the Mainland for President Bush.

The Bush campaign has inquired about advertising in Hawai'i since the polls but has not made a move, preferring for now to let Democrats scramble in what was supposed to be Kerry territory.

"It's friend-to-friend. It's family-to-family," Brennon Morioka, the chairman of the Hawai'i Republican Party, said of the GOP ground strategy. "I think that kind of commitment is very powerful and hard to overcome with media buys.

"I think they feel Hawai'i slipping away."

Lingle waved signs for Bush and other Republicans in Hawai'i Kai last night and plans to appear at a GOP rally outside the State Capitol today.

Clinton credited Lingle for some of Bush's strength here. "You've got a popular Republican governor," Clinton told KHNL News8. "She's being loyal to her president, as she should be.''

Other Democrats said the party remains confident that Kerry will prevail in Hawai'i and described the late advertising as a message that the party takes the closeness of the race seriously.

"We know that this election will be close," said Josh Earnest, a DNC spokesman.

The new DNC ad, which will run in rotation with an ad that debuted in Hawai'i Tuesday night, charges, among other things, that median family incomes in Hawai'i have fallen and that gasoline prices have hit record highs under Bush. But some Hawai'i economists have described personal income here — a different economic indicator — as strong and projected to grow.

Other analysts have attributed higher gas prices to the state's geographic isolation, higher business costs and the absence of competition at the wholesale level. Clinton pointed to Kerry's support for two issues — benefits for Filipino veterans and Native Hawaiian recognition — that have been important to Hawai'i's congressional delegation.

Last year, President Bush agreed to provide some Filipino war veterans with greater benefits but Hawai'i lawmakers and others have sought a broader package. Bush has not taken a position on a bill by Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawai'i, that would recognize Native Hawaiians as an indigenous people with the right to self-determination. Kerry endorsed the bill this month.

Clinton appeared for Kerry in the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Florida this week but his campaigning has been limited by his recovery from heart surgery. He told Hawai'i television reporters that he would like to visit the Islands with his family in December for a vacation.

"I need a little time off after this surgery and then going back around," he told KHON.