Check out the war of words (or Tweets) that flared this month on Twitter.com between the official Kamehameha Schools persona (@KSNews) and a cyber squater that has grabbed onto a related name (@KSBE).

The official school site says:

Aloha. Please do not follow @KSBE. This is not an authorized representative of our organization. Thank you.

The imposter responds:

Do not trust @KSNews. KSBE is the only Kamehameha Schools news source.

One entry from the imposter last week:

As Pauahi’s will clearly states: “Fuck da haoles.”

11:01 PM Jan 26th from web

The exchange has slowed and perhaps warnings have had their effect. @KSBE you are not authorized to use the Kamehameha Schools seal or “KSBE” as it is part of our domain name.

The first race in the 2010 election to heat up turns out to be the scramble for Lt. Governor. State Senator Gary Hooser officially threw his hat into the ring by filing an organizational report with the Campaign Spending Commission on January 31, a prelude to actually filing nomination papers for the seat sometime before next . Schatz filed the previous day.

It’s hard to say which man has the early edge. Both ran in the 2006 primary for the 2nd Congressional District seat vacated by Ed Case and finished in the middle of the pack.

Hooser ran in 5th place with 10,730 votes (9.1%), well behind the top tier candidates, Mazie Hirono (24,487 votes or 20.7%) and Colleen Hanabusa (23,643 votes or 20.0%). Schatz was close behind with 8,254 votes (7.0%).

But Schatz, a former state representative from Makiki, was elected Democratic Party state chair last year and was very visible at party functions across the state during the 2008 election. As an early backer of Barack Obama and a key figure in the local Obama campaign, he’s gotten a lot of favorable public exposure.

Hooser, with an electoral base on Kauai, now serves as Senate Majority Leader and has been out in front with a low-key but visible advertising campaign selling “The Hooser Story”, both through online pop-up ads in the online Star-Bulletin as well as on his own campaign web site.

The key for Schatz, though, may be his campaign chair, attorney Andy Winer, fresh off of two successful and exremely visible statewide campaigns. In 2006, Winer served as campaign chair for Dan Akaka’s re-election against challenger Ed Case, and in 2008 was coordinator of the Hawaii for Obama campaign. Winer previously managed Duke Bainum’s mayoral campaign in 2004, which came within a few thousand votes of victory. That set of experience and contacts in an invaluable asset that Schatz now appears to have locked up.

For that reason, if no other, I’ve got to consider Schatz the early leader in what is expected to become a very crowded field.

But with the prospect Congressman Neil Abercrombie coming home to run for governor, things get complicated. After all, it has been traditional to balance the ticket geographically and/or ethnically. An Abercrombie-Schatz ticket, with both candidates tracing their political roots to the same Makiki-Manoa neighborhoods, would lack the diversity normally relied on to knit together a statewide campaign organization. Hooser would at least bring a neighbor island perspective and backing, although Kauai has fewer voters than either Maui or the Big Island.

On the other hand, either Schatz or Hooser could bring considerable balance to a ticket with one of the other expected contenders, such as Senate President Colleen Hanabusa or Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann.

If Abercrombie does follow through and jump into the governor’s race, the whole 2010 election is likely to be a mad scramble for position.