Hawaii Republicans are in high spirits heading into tomorrow's convention in Waikiki, buoyed by their candidate's lead in a congressional race that has drawn national attention and by a sense that political winds are finally shifting in their favor.

Jonah-Kuhio Ka'auwai, elected to a two-year term as state party chairman in May 2009, credits a big-tent approach that emphasizes core values rather than specific issues or candidates.

The 37-year-old Kauai native, imbued by Christian beliefs and regal Hawaiian heritage, describes himself as a lifelong conservative who always voted Republican but only registered for the party in 2004.

The Kamehameha Schools alum (he was a boarding student) earned a bachelor's degree from Boston College with a double major in business marketing and philosophy. He and his wife, Shari, who works for the state Department of Public Safety (his former employer), have two young sons, both of whom attend public school in Kailua.

Ka'auwai, a former deputy chief of staff for Lt. Gov. James “;Duke”; Aiona, got an early political education from the Democrats' point of view, having interned with U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka and the late Henry Giugni, the Daniel Inouye confidant and Senate sergeant-of-arms who became a Washington lobbyist.

Question: Charles Djou is leading in the polls (for the 1st Congressional District special election, which has Democrats Ed Case and Colleen Hanabusa splitting their party's vote). The Democrats' response ... is that he won't be able to win in November. Assuming he does win this special election, how do you parlay that into a full term, when it's him against just one Democrat?

Answer: The way we look at it is Charles Djou will have won because not only Republicans voted for Charles Djou, but because Democrats as well as independents voted for Charles Djou. The message of fiscal accountability, limited government and individual responsibility is what is really important to the voters of Hawaii. And taking that message and moving forward with our candidates will be probably one of the most strategic things that we do in keeping the buzz up in Hawaii from Charles' election.

Q: How do you build a viable second party? In the state House and Senate, you're down to seven out of 76 being Republicans.

A: Well, the difference, I think, of what we've seen in the last 10 to 20 years in Republicans in their politics has been that the party has been built on either one of two things. It's been built either on issues, as we saw in the late '80s with the Robertson movement, the pro-life movement, and we also saw an influx of candidates and elected officials come in with the same-sex debates in the late '90s. And then it was Linda Lingle that came in. So we had both an issues- and candidate-driven Republican Party.

What we're moving to is a values-based party. It's like building your house. You build your house on something that is long-lasting. We are building our house on a solid-rock foundation and we consider those our values of liberty, limited government, individual responsibility, fiscal accountability and equality of opportunity (LLIFE). ... It's a separation of values and issues.

Q: Last year when you were running to head the party, you said your goal was to increase membership 100 percent (to about 40,000 people), you wanted a Republican candidate for every elected office and to register 30,000 new voters. Have you achieved all those goals?

A: No, not quite yet. My term ends next year. We're working right now on getting candidates in every race. The first step was to rebrand and to rebuild the party. So I think that's the stage of progress that we're in and we're doing excellent right now. We're expecting a spirited yet very transformational convention this weekend due to platform and just the excitement of our candidates.

Q: How many people do you expect at the convention?

A: About 600 or 700.

Q: How many people are registered as Republicans in Hawaii?

A: It's a little over 17,000.

Q: (Regarding the) platform ... the Hawaii GOP rejected having that litmus test for candidates, right?

A: Yes. All of our delegation — which is the national committeeman, the national committeewoman, as well as myself — and I think the governor is in line with that. We did reject a litmus test for candidates. It was an issues-based litmus test.

Q: So you have the values statement — LLIFE — and the issues are separate, about 22 pages of issues. There has been some objection to that approach ... that it leaves the GOP platform too open to interpretation. What's your response to that?

A: I think it's completely the opposite. We're completely transforming what the platform committee does. The platform committee will turn into what we would consider more of a think tank — a think tank that produces both sides of the issues and is an education base for the candidates as well as the party members.

So what you're looking at is a single page of values and these values are the glue that brings us together as Republicans. It is the standpoint from which we all can agree, and then from that standpoint we can come up with principled discussion on all of the issues that arise. It's a big-tent approach.

Q: I did a bit of Googling to find out a little bit about you. Religion often comes up. ... Could you tell me a little bit more about that aspect and how you apply it in your political life?

A: I am a Christian. I go to Hope Chapel West Oahu. I'm ... on the Council of Elders. I've been a worship leader there for nine years now. I was a men's pastor there. So that's my background when it comes to faith. I have strong Christian values, no doubt. I believe in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I believe that the fruit of someone's works is how we can best describe someone and who they are. Not by what they say, but what they produce. ... I think bringing that into politics, it's been pretty easy for me to be able to determine right from wrong, the truth from things that are false. So I think it's a been a great aspect for my political introduction through the last year.

Q: Do you have any aspirations yourself as a candidate?

A: No.

Q: Civil unions is a big issue now. (Gov. Lingle has until July 6 to act on the gay rights measure approved by the state Legislature.) How does the Republican Party approach this issue?

A: Very easily. Since the Republican Party doesn't have a stance technically on this issue, what we're going to do is we're going to conduct polling among our members and find out where they stand. I can guarantee you we won't have 100 percent of the people in the Republican Party against civil unions. There's a diversity of opinion ... yet everyone is still Republican.

Q: You had a few Republicans in the Legislature vote for House Bill 444.

A: Absolutely. Yes, we did. Two out of the eight legislators voted for civil unions.

Q: And that's OK?

A: I think those people can determine LLIFE for themselves, sure.

Q: Getting back to the special election. The feud among the Democrats has clearly benefited Charles Djou. What does it tell you about the Democrats?

A: What it tells me is that the Democrat Party doesn't know what its values are. Foundationally, they don't know who they are.

My dad was a union rep, curious enough. And my dad was very strong into protecting the rights of his workers for the ILWU, and brought us up that way. My mom is a Republican, has always been a Republican; so we had an interesting upbringing.

But my dad always told me as the years went on, that it's not the Democrat Party that he first was introduced to, where the discussions were on limited government, on liberty. Now the Democrat Party has gone so far to the left there's a huge divide. There's a massive power play going on ... old guard versus new guard, maybe. But it's certainly their problem, and not ours. We're focusing on what it means to be a Republican, shaping our message for ourselves. We're looking at new times in politics in the state of Hawaii.