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In the 2014 Hawaii primary races the average person is not the center of attention. You are.

Here’s why you are not average and why the candidates care so much about you.

Why are you exceptional? Because you read Civil Beat. That indicates that you pay close attention to politics.

All kinds of public opinion research shows that compared to the average voter, Civil Beat readers, like those who follow politics in the media, are more likely to be knowledgeable about and engaged by politics. Most significantly, you are more likely to vote.

In Hawaii just voting itself makes you atypical. The average person is not an average voter because she is not a voter at all.

Most people eligible to vote here in fact do not. Voter turnout is even lower in a primary. About three-quarters of the eligible Hawaii voters will not cast a ballot in the upcoming primary races.

So let’s focus on the minority who actually vote. Even here you are different.

You are more likely than the average voter to take part in primary elections.  That means primary electorates are different from general election ones.

Don’t let this exceptionalism go to your heads though. You are not necessarily more objective than the average voter. Au contraire.

Civil Beat readers, again like others who pay attention to politics on a more or less regular basis, are more likely to have solidly entrenched political values that consistently frame your preferences. You are more partisan and more ideological than the average voter.

Call it consistency, call it integrity if that makes you feel good about yourself, but the bottom line is that your political preferences don’t vary much over time.

You are solid. You have a well-honed lens for viewing and assessing politics.

For you, one of the most powerful of those lenses is party identification. Party identification is a strong and stable force for most voters, but yours is likely to be even stronger and more stable, and more ideologically based.

In addition you are more likely to be more liberal if you are a Democrat and more conservative if you are a Republican.

Here’s a quick self-test: how often have you Democratic or Republican readers voted for the opposite party? When there is a choice between a more centrist and less centrist candidate, which do you choose?  (This second question is more complicated for Hawaii’s Republicans for reasons I will explore later.)

But to sum up: Whichever party you identify with, you are that party’s base. You pay attention, are loyal, and you vote. That is why candidates in primaries spend so much time courting you.

The average voter is more moderate and centrist with a less formidable, more permeable way of making political choices.

That does not make her an independent. Most people who call themselves independents in fact vote fairly consistently — though not as consistently as you do — for one party or the other.

In survey research terms, they are “leaners” because they lean toward one party or the other.  You lean too, but way over — and you stay there.

What’s left in the independent category after the leaners are removed is a very small number of people who regularly vary their party choices.

Within this small group is an even tinier one, the deliberators, those who pay close attention to politics and study the issues before making up their minds — the folks that NPR always seems to find in some local diner. You know, two weeks before an election, the Iowan with the biscuits and eggs (free coffee refills in a chipped mug) telling Robert Siegel, “Nope. I haven’t made up my mind yet. I’m still studying the issues.”

(When I lived in Iowa, it was easier to find a decent candidate than a decent diner.)

There is something culturally powerful about this bacon-and-eggs narrative. But its power doesn’t come from how most citizens behave; it is an aspiration about how citizens should behave.

So much for the myth of the enlightened independent. You non-average voters are enlightened because you are not independent.

In primaries candidates work exceptionally hard to appeal to you more enlightened, less moderate partisans because you are more likely than the average voter to cast a ballot.

The candidates do this by stressing how strongly they reflect the soul of the political party you support — the true liberal or true conservative.

The Schatz-Hanabusa Senate Democratic primary moved in that direction from the beginning. Sen. Brian Schatz has stressed the kinds of things that mean the most to liberals: social security, prescription drug coverage, and the environment. He has also gotten some highly publicized endorsements from progressive organizations and national politicians.

According to the recent Civil Beat poll, his strategy seems to be working. Those who called themselves liberals were over twice as likely to support Schatz (55 percent) as they were to back Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (26 percent).

This appeal to the party base was not so obvious in the early stages of the Abercrombie-Ige Democratic gubernatorial race.

For state Sen. David Ige there really was not very much of a visible early stage. He declared his candidacy, focused on getting his work done in the Senate, and relied on Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s unpopularity to get him support. As Ige’s campaign has become more visible, he has made some key moves toward the base.

Recently Ige has very publicly taken positions on Kakaako (controlling developers and protecting the little guy) and against the constitutional amendment that would allow religious schools to get state funds for pre-K education programs (separation of church and state, support of teachers union) that distinguish him from the governor and appeal to traditional hardcore liberal Democratic voters.

The 1st Congressional District race is different because there are so many candidates, and none of them has managed to distinguish him or herself in ways that appeal to the Democratic base. Even the most astute political junkie will have a hard time distinguishing these candidates on the basis of their policies or ideologies.

So it is no surprise that the two candidates, Donna Mercado Kim and Mark Takai, who over the years have gotten their names in the paper most often, are leading the pack.

Finally let’s talk about the elephant in the room  — really about the elephant not in the room — which is why none of this analysis of primary elections applies to Hawaii Republicans when in fact it applies to Republicans almost everywhere else in the United States.

The main reason why what we know about primary voters does not apply to Republican primaries in Hawaii is because this time, as usual, there aren’t any Republican primaries in Hawaii.

There are no fights between tea party candidates and Chamber of Commerce conservatives or between social moderates and social conservatives because there are no contests.

That is not a sign of unity. It is a sign of weakness. There is not likely to be a contest without a critical mass of Republican voters and at least a close to average chance of getting elected.

That’s why the serious, big-money Republican contests take place in competitive states like North Carolina, Mississippi, Wisconsin, or Kentucky where there are enough Republican voters to make the intraparty contest both meaningful and worthwhile.

No primary race is simply about just one thing, like energizing the base. All of the candidates have multiple messages that are tailored to appeal to a wide variety of voters. They also make fewer ideological appeals that resonate with the less ideological, average voter. For instance, consider how much Ige, Abercrombie, Schatz and Hanabusa talk about leadership and competence.

Overall, a political campaign is like a mosaic of very small pieces; however, some pieces are bigger and stand out more than others. The time-honored tactic of appealing to the base is one of those larger, more luminescent pieces.

As you try to figure out what’s going on in the Hawaii races — and you non-averagers are just the folks most likely to do this — keep in mind how different you are from the average voter.

Those differences color the lens that you use when you try to figure out what is going on. Because you are so politically engaged you may be the least likely to understand those whose views are not the same as yours and the appeals made to voters with those views.

Careful. Enthusiasm can be the enemy of understanding.