It's strange that Inouye outlasted Akaka. Inouye became Senator in 1959, Akaka in 1990. Big gap there. But they were pretty much like the Maine twins, Hawaii just elected a clone of Inouye when they put Akaka in there. Both were born in Honolulu in 1924 and served in World War II, both are very liberal asian-American Democrats, etc. Inouye probably wants to be another Robert Byrd and won't leave til he's carried out feet first. Ideally, the RATs could continue the tradition by finding another 86 year old liberal RAT to replace Akaka. ;-)
I would probably just try to run Charles Djou for the open Senate seat, though admittedly he'd be a long shot and the only reason he won 1 term in the House is because the RAT vote was split between candidates. Hard to see us making any meaningful gains in Hawaii, in any scenario.
My ideal solution? Give Hawaii independence and cut 'em lose. Whoever decided they'd make be ideal candidate for statehood was out of their mind. Oh well. Fat chance Congress will agree with my proposal any time soon.
Hawaii was supposed to be a GOP-leaning counterweight to Alaska which was supposed to be labor union rat. It was a surprise that Alaska went for Nixon.
Of course it was Hawaii where they unions took over, and they already had by 1960, I doubt anyone thought it would turn into total domination thought.
Check out this extremely! biased Wikipedia article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Revolution_of_1954_(Hawaii)