Leftovers from the recent state Democratic Convention:

There was lots of what the pros call “comity” between the enthusiastic Barack Obama delegates and the generally somewhat more politically experienced Hillary Clinton delegates at the convention. Good-natured ribbing and even some serious discussion of what the two candidates bring to the campaign could be heard all weekend.

That naturally led to talk of a “dream ticket” in which Hillary would join Barack as his vice-presidential candidate. That seems unlikely. Clinton could do more for her own important political agenda (and political future) remaining in the Senate than immersed in the “warm bucket of spit” that is the vice-presidency for four or eight years.

And despite Clinton’s obvious demographic appeal and popularity among several subsets of Democratic voters, she would be a mirror image of Obama on most substantive issues. Two liberal U.S. Senators does not make a perfectly balanced ticket.

Which brings us to the latest hot-prospect of the moment: Virginia Sen. James Webb. Webb has been everywhere recently: On the cover of Parade magazine, on all the talk shows and just about anywhere a media outlet wants to listen. Ostensibly he is out there promoting his new book, “A Time to Fight, Reclaiming a Fair and Just America,” which lays out his economic and foreign policy agenda. And Webb is quick to insist he has no interest in the vice-presidency.

But consider this: Webb is a gun-loving, former Republican, war hero and published author. He shares Obama’s opposition to the Iraq war but in many ways is symbolic of the working class Democrats Obama needs to attract to his campaign.

You can get too cute with all this, but the smoke surrounding Webb suggests there might be a little ambitious political fire in his belly.

If not Webb, then who would you like to see on the Obama ticket, and why?

Flowing just beneath the surface of just about everything we do in Hawaii is oil.

Hawaii is the most oil-dependent state in the union and despite all the efforts to boost alternatives, that status is likely to remain for a long time to come.

The latest example of our vulnerabilty to oil and its rising cost was word from the Honolulu Board of Water Supply that  in July it will impose a “power cost” adjustment of just over 9 cents for every 1,000 gallons of water you use. This is in addition to already approved water rate hikes which were based in part on anticipated increases in fuel costs.

There hasn’t been much reaction from consumers who are already numb from fuel cost “adjustments” on everything from airline tickets to the price of shipping goods. Even Hawaiian Electric has added to the bill for unexpectedly higher oil costs - nearly 15 cents per kilowatt-hour.

That adds up to a double whammy for consumers, since the Board uses electricity to pump the water.  A surcharge on a surcharge as it were.

By all accounts the cost of water is still fairly reasonable in Honolulu. The Board said its rates are among the lowest in the nation and certainly below Neighbor Island rates.

But there you have it. Until the day when we figure out how to make most of our power from something other than imported fuel ( and they’re working on it) , we are at the mercy of others.

The 2008 State Democratic convention is over, and while the results say this was Barack Obama’s moment, it is far from clear that we have entered anything approaching an “Obama era” in local politics.

The convention elected Obama campaign organizer Brian Schatz as party chair. And a strong majority of the delegates elected or selected to attend the national convention are committed to Obama.

But pro-Clinton party members won several contests for party posts, including the important slot of national committeewoman, which went to Jadine Nielsen, a Clinton-delegate candidate and a former political consultant to Congresswoman Mazie Hirono. Nielsen, a Washington D.C. veteran, beat current national committeewoman Dolly Strazar, who had been specifically endorsed by the Obama campaign.

Delegate also voted overwhelmingly and warmly to elect former Gov. George Ariyoshi, a Clinton supporter, to a return term as National Committeeman. Ariyoshi will attend the national convention but he won’t have a vote because he doesn’t officially take over until after the national convention.

Ariyoshi, who held the National Committeeman post for several years after he left the governorship, described this round rather poignantly as his “last hurrah.” We’ll see about that.

And aside from personalities, a number of resolutions or party plank suggestions that should have appealed to pro- “change” Obama delegates failed to make it.

In short, there was anything but clear unit discipline among the Obama delegates. They were focused for the moment on their man and the electrifying prospect of seeing him nominated for president.

What you saw was far more of a transitional moment than a revolution in local Democratic Party politics. And that, in fact, may be precisely what people want these days.

Byzantine party rules control the votes of most of a state’s delegation to the national convention. The bulk are allocated according to the results of earlier primaries or (as in Hawaii’s case) caucuses.

But there is just a little room for a delegate or two whose presence is not specifically dictated by the results of the caucus. One such, however, is the “unpledged” superdelegate position selected by the party central committee following the regular convention. Unpledged is in quotes because the position is not allotted according to caucus results, but the folks running for the postion are quite clear on who they back.

In this case, the leading contenders for that slot were former Judge James Burns, son of the late Gov. John A. Burns and Jennifer Goto Sabas, an aide to Sen Dan Inouye. Burns was asked personally by Obama (they’ve golfed together when Obama visited Hawaii) to run, and he made no secret of where his vote would go. Sabas, naturally, would be sensitive to the wishes of his boss, a strong Clinton backer.

Burns won that contest in squeaker by just a very few votes over Sabas, suggesting that the inner heirarchy of the party is far from a monolithic pro-Obama machine one might have thought it would become on caucus night.

While the national presidential contest  between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama goes on, Hawaii Democrats at their state convention this weekend went out of their way to keep that battle from burbling to the surface .

Just about every speaker went out of the way way to emphasize the importance of “unity” and getting together politically before the national convention. That was certainly the message from U.S.. Sens. Dan Akaka (in person) and Daniel Inouye (via taped video).

Inouye is a resolute Clinton backer, but he made it clear that “once the dust settles,” i.e., when likely nominee Obama is officially recognized, he will be on board.  Akaka, who only belatedly came out for Obama, said there is enough “polarization” around the country already  and that it’s time for Democrats, at any rate, to rally around a single candidate and set their sights on Republicans.

The one place where Obama-Clinton tensions might have openly surfaced was on a proposed resolution to bind  so-called free agent “Superdelegates” to vote according to the will of party voters. On Hawaii, they went overwhelmingly for Obama. While the resolution was largely symbolic, it might have created hard feelings. So the proposal was defeated on the convention floor even though the bulk of the delegates were Obama backers.

It seems as if any potential small gains wouldn’t have been worth the bad feeling.

Otherwise, the convention was more-or-less a love fest. We’ll see how long that lasts once the campaign has come and gone.

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In fact, at least one delegate was lamenting that there wasn’t enough  tussling and fighting at the convention.

Former Gov. John Waihee, who will attend the national convention as a Clinton delegate, good-humoredly was complaining to anyone who would listen that the convention needed a bigger dose of  dissent and fighting. His point: The folks who run things (who now include a fair number of former dissidents) do better when they are severely tested by the next generation.

Call it  a test by fire and Waihee was right: There wasn’t much of it this time around.