On the same night that Alabama and Mississippi voted in the Republican primary, Hawaii held its caucus. Although, due to the magic of time zones, the vote in Hawaii didn't conclude until early Wednesday morning, for most of continental America. By that point, almost everyone had gone to sleep.
Much like the members of a boy band are categorized by a single easy personality trait, the days of the primary have been categorized by a single overarching theme. This Tuesday, the theme was "Can Mitt Romney break through in the Deep South", and the answer was no. And just as no one is that interested in the fact that Joey Fatone owns one of the KITT cars from Night Rider, Hawaii was an afterthought.
Except, of course, it wasn't. As soon as Mitt Romney realized that he was never going to win over the party's base, he started focusing on delegate math. Although Hawaii is a small and Democratic leaning state with few delegates, any delegates are better than none. Romney won the state, with 45% of the vote, against Rick Santorum with 25% and Ron Paul with 18% of the vote. It was thought that Ron Paul might do well with Hawaii's young voters, but (and you you might have heard this before): Ron Paul ended up coming in third.
America is a society, and America is a political system. Currently, many of the entities of that political system have gone beyond opposing that society, as much as they just are not part of it. Much of what Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich offer is an identity politics focused narrowly on the issues of Appalachia. For much of the country, this isn't just wrong as much as it is gibberish. And Hawaii, which has little to do with these issues, has little interest in these appeals. And so, Mitt Romney becomes the default candidate, although even in Hawaii, he could not manage a majority.