The thing about Cynthia Thielen is that she is taking this improbable gig seriously.

With only about a month left in the campaign, the Republican Party tapped Thielen to step in for the ailing Jerry Coffee and take on the popular, senior and incumbent Dan Akaka for the U.S. Senate.

As Thielen puts it, she launched a campaign with no money, no organization, no headquarters, no bumper stickers, no nothin'.

But she had a few advantages: The big one is that she could run for the Senate on a no-risk basis. Thielen was unopposed in her re-election bid for the state House from her Windward O'ahu seat, so she had the time and the freedom to take on this improbable task.

She had the backing of the Republican Party, which was determined not to let Akaka walk into another six-year term without a fight.

And she had a package of issues revolving around the environment and energy independence that were ready-made for the bully pulpit a senatorial campaign provided. So, what was to lose?

Thielen has been frustrated by the rope-a-dope approach taken by the Akaka campaign. He has declined to debate her, much less make joint appearances around the campaign trail. His campaign sniffs that Thielen was not even elected to represent the Republicans, she was appointed.

All true enough.

It is more than obvious that Thielen and her supporters hunger to be placed on the same platform as Akaka under any conditions, any terms. She repeatedly calls for joint appearances and urges the media to treat her and the incumbent as equal candidates for this important office.

One can see why Akaka declines the honor. After all, any attention his campaign pays to the Thielen insurgency simply elevates her stature and political viability. The best tactic is to run an imperial campaign, avoiding as much as possible any notice of the opposition.

Thielen was also stung when the Sierra Club, longtime supporters in her legislative races, chose to endorse Akaka in the Senate campaign. This was nothing but politics, she charged, which of course is what it was.

The Sierra Club took a careful measurement of where its best chances of influence rested and made its case.

The Windward legislator took some small comfort in the fact that while the Sierra Club went its own way, she did get the nod from the Republicans for Environmental Protection as well as the Hawai'i Coalition of Conservation Voters.

The plain fact is that both Akaka and Thielen have good environmental records. The one stumbling block for Akaka was his vote in favor of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a vote Thielen says she never would have cast. But in the wake of the Sierra Club endorsement, Akaka says he is willing to revisit the drilling issue.

The truth is that Thielen's candidacy has legs not so much because she is totally different from Akaka, but because as a Republican, she is remarkably in step with him on a variety of issues ranging from a woman's right to choose, to questioning the course and legitimacy of the war in Iraq. She even found herself suggesting that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld should resign, a position even most Democrats have yet to assume.

It is far from certain that Thielen, underfunded and with precious little organizational time, can successfully take on the formidable and popular Akaka. One of her hopes is that moderate or independent voters who went with Ed Case in the primary would somehow decide it makes sense to cast their lot with her in the general election.

What this campaign does tell us is that Hawai'i Republicans, with the right candidate and with the right amount of preparation, have every right to believe they can take on the dominant Democrats head-to-head.

Reach Jerry Burris at jburris@honoluluadvertiser.com.