PHOENIX — Since all politics is local, as Tip O'Neill used to say, then even this historic race for president of the United States comes down, ultimately, to local politics and local issues.

That's a lesson being learned first hand by a group of high-powered journalists from across Asia who are here looking at the American presidential election through the Jefferson Fellows program at the East-West Center.

From afar, the contest between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain may look national and bigger than life. But the reality, as these journalists are learning, is that the U.S. presidential contest is really a ground war, fought state-by-state and district-by-district.

The primary reason is our Electoral College system, surely a perplexing bit of business for journalists accustomed to one variety of the parliamentary system or another. They were intrigued to learn that a candidate could win by he narrowest of victories in the right combination of states and yet come out a big winner. Or even, as happened between Al Gore and George Bush, a candidate can win the popular vote but lose the election because the math of the electoral votes fell the other way. That's why presidential candidates cannot afford to run a strictly "national" campaign. It is a matter of each state.

In Hawai'i, the Jefferson Fellows learned quickly that almost everyone has written the Island off for Hawai'i-born Obama. Even popular Gov. Linda Lingle, who surely could sway a few votes, has focused her energies for McCain on the Mainland.

Now the group is in Arizona, where McCain is popular among voters if not particularly well-liked by the conservative folks who tend to control the Arizona GOP. The "local" issue that controls political talk in Arizona is immigration, which should favor McCain's favor since he has been a leader in the fight for immigration reform from the Republican side of the aisle.

But somehow, McCain's solid credentials on immigration have been lost in the political shouting and many in Arizona are looking to Obama as the best hope to sort out the divisive immigration mess.

Soon, the journalists will be on to the American "Rust Belt," Pennsylvania and Ohio, where they will learn that the dominant issue is jobs, jobs, jobs, and how can we keep them at home?

After the election, they will travel to Washington, D.C., where the few remaining souls in town will be focused on their own local concern: How can I get a job in the next administration?

Jerry Burris' column appears Wednesdays in this space. See his blog at blogs.honoluluadvertiser.com/akamaipolitics. Reach him at jrryburris@yahoo.com.