This early phase of the Abercrombie-Hannemann 2010 gubernatorial battle royal is already giving me the creeps.

Do you remember what happened the last time around?

It was 1986, and Congressman Cec Heftel resigned in order to come back and run for governor.

A special election to fill the short remainder of Heftel’s term was scheduled for the same day as the primary election.

It was a nasty campaign, with Mufi hurling drug-innuendo and long-haired-haole stereotypes at Neil (who was already many years past his “Super Senator” persona, having served in both the state Houswe and Senate) and rumors/attacks/smears undermining Heftel’s effort.

When the votes were counted, Neil won the special election and spent several months as a member of Congress, but Mufi won the primary election and the right to face the Republican opponent in November.

Mufi’s negative campaigning had alienated a hefty chunk of Democratic voters, and in the general election face-off moderate republican Pat Saiki beat Mufi for the right to represent Honolulu’s normally Democratic 1st Congressional District.

Okay. Here we are 24 years later, and the Office of Elections says there’s no money for a special election, so it might be delayed until September’s primary.

Charles Djou is no Pat Saiki. But you can see various ways this year’s election can end up with strange results.

In the Congressional race, could strong Democratic candidates split the field and allow a Republican to carry the special election and take that mantle of incumbency into the general election? Actually, Democrat Ed Case seems more likely to take votes from Djou, giving Senate President Hanabusa a strong race. It’s a race that could turn nasty, with overtones of the original Neil-Mufi fight.

Could a candidate repeat Neil’s feat and win the special election but lose the general? At this point, anything seems possible.

Then there’s the Neil v. Mufi rematch. Could the primary campaign exacerbate divisions among Democrats and cause enough to withhold their votes in the general to give the GOP candidate a winning boost in the process?

Much of this, of course, is really positioning for those two U.S. Senate seats which will be open, one way or another, within the next few years.

What a wild year it’s going to be.