I want to take a moment, on behalf of former Advertiser staffers Treena Shapiro and Peter Boylan, to thank the loyal readers of this blog.

Many of you have been with us since we started The Notebook as a session blog several years ago. You have contributed ideas that have led to stories in the newspaper. You have helped provoke interesting conversation. You have been snarky but have mostly kept the comments clever.

You should know that you helped make The Notebook among the top-read blogs at The Advertiser, despite the lack of promotion and, well, sports, pretty faces or furry animals.

We don't know yet whether the blog will be around at the new Star-Advertiser. If it is, I invite you to join us. If not, thank you again for reading.

U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii, was among the dignitaries today to help open Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann's Oahu headquarters on South Beretania for his Democratic primary campaign for governor.

Inouye has not disputed that he encouraged Hannemann to run. But the senior senator has also said he would not endorse in the primary.

In fact, Inouye planned to drop by former congressman Neil Abercrombie's headquarters at Ward Warehouse later this afternoon.

Former congressman Neil Abercrombie, who remained neutral in the special election for Congress in May, today endorsed state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa to reclaim urban Honolulu’s 1st Congressional District from U.S. Rep. Charles Djou, R-Hawaii, in November.

U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye and U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka backed Hanabusa over former congressman Ed Case in the special election. Abercrombie, who had some of the harshest words against Case during his unsuccessful campaign against Akaka in the 2006 primary for Senate, refused to choose sides.

Asked why he didn’t endorse in the special election when it could have made a difference, Abercrombie said:

I think I did make my feelings known that we had strong support for both candidates, certainly in our campaign. And I felt that if either had been nominated they would have -- I was a colleague of Ed’s before; I’ve been a friend and a colleague of Colleen Hanabusa -- and I thought either one would represent the Democratic Party in stellar fashion.

What others did in terms of support or endorsements and so on, were for their reasons, I think, which they made clear as well.

Gov. Linda Lingle gave her assessment today of the likely showdown for Congress in urban Honolulu’s 1st Congressional District in November between U.S. Rep. Charles Djou, R-Hawaii, and state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa.

The distinction is crystal clear between the two of them -- from a very big spending, pro-labor, big government, insider politics to Charles, who is a new breath of fresh air, a fiscal conservative, obviously a couple of decades younger.

So I think the contrasts are just really, really clear now. And I think that’s a good thing for the public.

Rafael del Castillo, an attorney and patient rights’ advocate, is proud to say he is not a career politician.

His first campaign for office was in the special election this month in urban Honolulu’s 1st Congressional District, where he finished fourth with 664 votes and 0.4 percent of the vote.

But he was at the state Democratic convention this weekend with a table, rainbow-themed campaign signs, brochures about his platform and a message that there is still a primary in September even though former congressman Ed Case dropped out and state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa is the overwhelming favorite.

Del Castillo, a progressive, received positive reviews by many who heard the few debates he was allowed to participate in during the special election. His supporters have been critical of the mainstream news media, including The Advertiser, for not covering his campaign.

His campaign logo is a broom -- a suggestion that the people need to clean house in Congress.

“I am not a career politician and I have -- compared to anybody else, even Colleen -- more experience in doing the things and working in the programs that we need to change,” he said.