It's not really clear why he cares so much, but activist and frequent presidential candidate Ralph Nader is upset that faraway Hawai'i and Alaska are being ignored by the big field of candidates for president this year.

Nader says he has written each of the major presidential candidates asking if they will pledge to visit both Hawai'i and Alaska if they achieve their party's nomination.

"I believe that if you run for the presidency of the United States, you should respect all voters by campaigning in states regardless of the polls," Nader said in a recent letter to the editor.

That's a fine goal but unlikely, given the realities of presidential campaigning today and the calculus that drives candidates toward vote-rich states and regions.

Face it, a Hawai'i visit punches a two-day hole out of a campaign that measures the candidate's schedule in minutes. And as Nader points out, Hawai'i tends to be written off as a sure four electoral votes for the Democratic candidate. Thus the likely winner will spend his or her time somewhere else, and the Republican can easily say it simply isn't worth the time and effort.

The last time a nominee (not candidate, but nominee) visited Hawai'i was in 1960, when Richard Nixon honored his campaign pledge to visit every state in the Union as the Republican Party nominee. In fact, Hawai'i was the first major post-convention stop for nominee Nixon.

(Nader had it a little wrong when he said the last visit by a nominee to either Alaska or Hawai'i was when Nixon visited Alaska that year. He hit both states.)

But the basic point remains: By virtue of our size and geographic isolation, Hawai'i is just not an attractive destination for a candidate. The hard-boiled logic of a campaign says you put the candidate where he or she can do the most good in those frantic weeks between nomination and election.

Even Nixon's supporters, in retrospect, conceded that his promise to visit every state left the campaign overextended and unfocused.

So, will Nader's plea gain any traction within the campaigns of the major presidential candidates this year? Not too likely. The best bet would be if Barack Obama wins the nomination, he might schedule a brief return visit to his birthplace for symbolic reasons, if nothing else.

Nader's point is that Alaska and Hawai'i have particular concerns and ideas that deserve attention from presidential candidates. He's right.

But in realistic terms, those concerns and ideas will have to get through to the candidate through indirect means. That means our congressional delegates in the case of the Democrat and through Gov. Linda Lingle in the case of the Republicans.

It will be interesting to see if anyone listens.

Reach Jerry Burris at jburris@honoluluadvertiser.com. Read his daily blog at blogs.honoluluadvertiser.com.