A comment by ‘hipoli’ a couple of days ago about the Congressional race drew a number of lively responses. Here’s a piece of the comment that started it:

Be clear to your readers about where you stand in this particular race or be more fair in what your reporting (again, if you already have and I missed it, I’m wrong here). You don’t have to do as I suggest (it is after all, your blog) but I think that would be most fair and honest to your loyal readers.

I’m not sure I can “be clear”, but I’ll take a stab at revealing my ambivalence. I haven’t really thought this all the way through, so you’ll have to put up with a bit of rambling.

Yes, as I said earlier, Colleen Hanabusa would have been my first choice (among available candidates) if we lived in the 1st District. We have a roundabout connection with her via Meda’s family that goes way back. I should clarify that–the Hanabusa’s relation with Meda’s family is via Meda’s second cousin once removed. Although we’re personally quite distant from it, we met Colleen’s parents several times as a result. We also overlapped in graduate school at UH with Colleen’s former husband, and have watched her political career with interest.

Colleen has demonstrated her political effectiveness by becoming Hawaii’s first female president of the Senate, no easy task. She had a law career before politics, so isn’t a one-trick pony. She smart, well-spoken, and confident. She’s garnered lots of political backing from a pretty wide swath of the political spectrum. I have no doubt she would be an effective member of Congress.

And, if you’ve been dropping by this site for a while, you’ll know that I’ve been quite critical of Ed Case in the past. He’s more conservative on key issues than I like, and doesn’t have a similar record of legislative effectiveness.

That said, in this case, at this particular political moment, and in a special election with a short timeline, there was a legitimate question of who would be the strongest Democratic candidate to face Djou. Available polling data suggested that, for whatever reasons, it wasn’t Colleen. At some point, I expressed the view that I felt it was important to back the Democrat most likely to beat Djou, even if that meant abandoning my preferred candidate. There’s room for debate on that, as reflected in the comments on this blog, but it’s a legitimate debate.

Not being heavily involved in the internal factions of the Democratic Party, my emphasis was on the “big picture”, putting a Democrat into the seat, even for this short term to be decided by the special election. Apparently the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reached a similar conclusion. Other Democrats saw it differently, either because of a commitment to Colleen, a different intermediate-long term political strategy, or because they were just dead set against Case. All legitimate positions, so it’s no wonder that the debate has continued and will carry over into the primary.

That’s the election. Then there’s the ongoing analysis of campaign finances, which raises a different set of questions.

Some people believe that, in a more perfect world, candidates wouldn’t have to raise money in order to campaign. I used to agree. Now I’m not so sure. The ability to raise campaign funds is one measure of the degree of political support a candidate is able to muster. Does a candidate have enough of a following to launch a plausible campaign?

Does the ability to raise big money make a candidate “suspect”? Not necessarily so. After all, money will follow a winner or a projected winner, and at any given moment it’s hard to know whether money is leading or following. But, if money talks, it’s important to know who candidates are listening to?

There’s a thin line between having the skills and ambition to put together a winning political coalition, and being “anointed” by political power brokers as part of their own larger political plan. There are dangers to be alert to either way.

Politics is a matter not only of ideas and principles, but of debts and obligations, friendships and commitments, a constant clash and balancing of competing and conflicting interests. I look at campaign contributions as markers identifying the interests competing for the attention of a candidate or public official.

Whew. Enough of that for an early Sunday morning.