Is Lt. Governor Duke Aiona trying to flush one of his recent campaign speeches down the memory hole by removing it from YouTube, where it had previously been featured among his other campaign videos?

Just last week, I noted a series of Aiona fundraisers held on the west coast, including a lunch in Palo Alto featured on YouTube by the Aiona campaign.

Aiona’s speech, captured on video, was later criticized in a press release by state Democratic Party chair, Brian Schatz. The full press release is contained in a comment on that post.

Here’s Duke Aiona in Palo Alto at a fundraiser with national GOP Chair Michael Steele, and when he describes the reasons for his candidacy, he doesn’t mention Hawaii’s economy, or public education, or anything that pertains to Hawaii’s people. Instead, he says that his election would deliver a “knockout blow” to the Democrats, because the President is from Hawaii.

It is a sad state of affairs when Duke Aiona makes the upcoming race for Governor about Barack Obama rather than what he plans to do for Hawaii. And he went all the way to California to do it.

What kind of message is that?

But now if you click on the YouTube link today, it returns a short error message: “This video is private.”

So the question posed by Schatz still hangs in the air: “What kind of a message is that?”

What kind of a message is sent by Aiona’s attempt to make his own words disappear?

But do not fear. The video was downloaded prior to Aiona’s attempt to hide it away from view. One short clip featuring Aiona’s punch line can be found on YouTube, posted by a user known as “peoplesdialectic”.

Hopefully the full videos will be available again soon.

Stay tuned.