ST. PAUL, Minn. — Jerry Coffee remembers the first time he saw John McCain, a fellow Navy pilot, inside what American prisoners of war mockingly called the Hanoi Hilton in Vietnam.

McCain was smaller than he expected. His hair had already gone white. He was frail and badly broken physically. Yet he was still fiery — "just cocky as hell," Coffee recalls — and impatient and unforgiving of incompetence or stupidity.

"From that first impression I had of him, it's been a long, long evolution of mellowing I've seen in him," said Coffee, a retired Navy captain and motivational speaker who lives in 'Aiea. "He's a guy who has developed much more empathy and understanding, a kind of sense of forgiveness, an intellectual understanding that maintaining hatred is so counterproductive."

With the Arizona senator about to accept the GOP's presidential nomination, Coffee and other delegates to the Republican National Convention are talking about what a McCain presidency might be like for Hawai'i.

In a statement from his campaign in response to questions from The Advertiser, McCain said he would expand a federal school voucher program to give parents more choices for their children's education, support letting voters decide on a Honolulu mass-transit project, oppose a Native Hawaiian federal recognition bill as racially divisive, and consider changes to federal maritime laws he believes now restrict competition and lead to higher consumer costs.

The McCain campaign, unprompted by the newspaper, also chose to address several other issues for Hawai'i voters.

McCain said he would be a strong advocate for Second Amendment rights, which could be an interest for hunters and members of the Hawaii Rifle Association.

McCain would invest in the modernization of the military but would seek significant reform in the defense acquisition process. "Too often, parochial interests — rather than the national interest — have guided our spending decisions," he said.

McCain would back increased federal spending on drug education, treatment and prevention programs. The senator would also increase funding for drug interdiction operations and support stronger penalties for drug trafficking.

McCain supports the reversal of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. He also believes marriage should be protected and defined as the union between one man and one woman.

Gov. Linda Lingle, in an interview with The Advertiser and Honolulu Star-Bulletin in preparation for the convention, said McCain may also help Hawai'i advance a clean-energy initiative to reduce the state's reliance on imported oil.

"The energy issue is very big for me, and Sen. McCain has a good understanding of this issue, so who comes in at the Department of Energy — while not essential to continuing our clean-energy initiative — it would be very helpful to Hawai'i if Sen. McCain was there," she said.

ADMIRABLE QUALITIES

Under a McCain administration, the Republican governor said, it is likely she would know several of his Cabinet secretaries and other appointees, which could help Hawai'i obtain federal resources.

Lingle said she admires McCain's willingness to take positions — on issues such as campaign-finance reform and creating a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants — that he knows might upset some within the party.

McCain, she said, has also worked cooperatively with Senate Democrats.

For example, McCain was part of the Gang of 14 — which included Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawai'i — that in 2005 negotiated an end to Democratic filibusters against President Bush's judicial nominations.

"I think that's a very admirable quality, so that really does excite me, because I think we need more of that in American government today," Lingle said.

"The problems are too big and they're coming too quickly."

Like Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the Democratic nominee, McCain is not investing national campaign resources in Hawai'i because it is a traditionally Democratic state expected to go to Obama.

President Bush, however, did better than anticipated in Hawai'i in 2004, losing to Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts 54 percent to 45 percent overall but 51 percent to 48 percent on O'ahu.

INCREASING APPEAL

McCain, with his military record and independent streak, should have a larger base of support in the Islands than Bush and be more attractive to independents and moderate Democrats.

But the historic nature of Obama's campaign and the fact that he was born in Hawai'i and graduated from Punahou School have captivated Democrats and brought thousands of new people into politics.

Lingle, during Obama's homecoming and vacation in the Islands this month, tried to deflate some of the celebrity surrounding his campaign.

"But this is not 'American Idol,' " she said. "This is not voting for your favorite or the most popular. This is making an important decision on who should lead our nation."

Miriam Hellreich, the state's Republican National Committeewoman, said she suspects more people will become enthusiastic about McCain after the convention.

Hellreich said, however, that McCain would likely do better in Hawai'i if Obama did not have the local connection.

"Probably, I would think so," she said. "There's no doubt that there is a sense of pride that Obama had gone to school there.

"But it's the kind of thing that I think people have to take a real serious look at, and these candidates are so different, they really have a chance now to make a comparison."

McCain met his second wife, Cindy, at a reception in the Islands and the couple honeymooned in Hawai'i after their wedding. Also, McCain's father led the U.S. Pacific Command in the late 1960s and early 1970s, while McCain was being held captive in Vietnam.

For Coffee, seeing his friend about to get the nomination is surreal. Coffee spent nearly seven years as a POW in Vietnam — McCain more than 5 1/2 years — and Coffee said neither man knew then how their lives might turn out.

Coffee said perhaps the best example of McCain's evolution was his lead role in advising President Clinton to open up full diplomatic relations with Vietnam in 1995, which disappointed some in the POW community.

"When he and I would have conversations in that big old cell bay in Hanoi, never in either of our wildest dreams did we ever think about him being the president of our country," he said.

Coffee believes the more people hear McCain's life story, the more they will relate to him as a candidate, and relate his experiences with their own.

"Although far from a perfect man, he still embodies the values of commitment, honor, courage and integrity, and, popular or not, these are the values that people, down deep, admire and want for themselves," he said.