My simple post late yesterday with the full list of HGEA endorsements already kicked up a little dust, with a call-and-response by Keith Rollman and Gerald De Heer that is worth reading. You’ll have to scroll down to the end of that unusually long entry in order to find the comments.
De Heer, who once served in the state legislature, addressed his comment to Rollman, first saying that, in his view, the HGEA endorsement likely wraps up the Democratic gubernatorial nomination for Hannemann. Then he continues:
In this campaign, you are the de facto leader of the ‘539’ forces for Hanneman and against Neil Abercrombie. The Republicans nationally have Fox, by comparison Hanneman has you. If anything needs to be ‘spit out’ it is the nature of that relationship, how it works, and why the only connection between you and the Hanneman Campaign is coordinated by ‘coincidence’ and nothing else. How does that work?
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Political campaigns today are about destroying opposition through any means possible. You are swift-boating here and elsewhere. And we all know how that works. The official campaign perpetuates a half-lie about an opponent, and the unofficial-official campaign raises the half lie to a full lie. Than, a third tier of operatives start push polls and other whispering tactics which, when implemented, make the original half-lie ‘truth’ and the opponent is now defined.
I appreciate De Heer’s point, but am not sure about that “539” reference. Does he mean “527” organizations, the groups making “independent” campaign expenditures that recent court decisions have further empowered?
Rollman responded directly.
My “connection” to the Hannemann campaign is one of friedship only. I’m sure the campaign spending reports were scrutinized for any professional reimbursement…it simply wasn’t there.
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I have never made a derogatory remark about Ian, and I have tried to keep my criticism of Aberccrombie based totally on verifiable facts. You suggest that people should participate in democracy…I agree…I’m just not on your side, and I hope your candidate loses.
Fair enough.
I didn’t mean to “bury” the HGEA’s endorsement of Hannemann. I just figured that’s just about all the mainstream media has reported. Even this morning, the Star-Advertiser 2nd day story still doesn’t appear to have reported the long list of HGEA endorsements. It seems to me that those down-the-ticket endorsements have a lot of impact statewide and are certainly worth noting.
And did you notice that HSTA, the teachers’ union, walked past Senate Education Committee chairman Norman Sakamoto and House Education vice-chair Lyla Berg to endorse Gary Hooser for Lt. Governor? Congratulations to Hooser.
Once again, I can’t find any information about the HSTA endorsements on the HSTA website, and clicking on “search” returns an error message.
If the goal of the union’s endorsements is to boost their selected candidates, isn’t that best done through maximum exposure?
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Looks like a campaign operative, posts like a campaign operative. Quack quack.
Ian: I understand there was a draft of HSTA endorsements in the legislative races. Perhaps, like HGEA, you had to be a member to get a look at the list.
A former legislator opined that he always liked the HGEA endorsement more than the other public worker unions– the HGEA membership was more likely to follow the recommendation than those independent types in HSTA and UHPA. In a close primary knife fight, the retired pol preferred HGEA.
The Star-Advertiser did comment on HGEA picking one of its members Daynettte “Dee” Morikawa over one of the Kauai reps and Michael Schultz over Rida Cabanilla in Waipahu/Ewa. Any thoughts on why?
We all know why the HSTA dissed Lyla Berg – because she supported getting our keiki back in school. So not having their endorsement is actually a good thing!
I’m not sure that reasoning is correct, because Gary Hooser supported getting the kids back in school, too, and was opposed to furlough Fridays.
As a 19 yr member of the HGEA, I respectfully disagree with the notion that the union’s endorsement is a game changer for Mayor Hannemann.
The membership is large and diverse. I’ve gathered from my conversations over the years that most government workers are not particularly swayed one way or the other by the union’s recommendations — this is especially true when all candidates are well known.
Mayor Hannemann is popular with government workers because he’s been very supportive of the union contract proposals in the legislature. This is the most important issue with all union members.
On the other hand Rep. Abercrombie is well known and supported among the older members.
Union support offers certain resources to the candidates — phone banks, sign wavers, etc — and this may be crucial in a tight race. But union workers will use their own brains when the vote — and not a few will vote for Lt. Gov. Aiona.
Disclosure — I back Rep. Abercrombie because
of his unequivocal support of civil unions. Go Neil!
Whoa! Rollman’s connection to the Hannemann campaign is “one of friendship only”? That cannot be allowed to pass! Keith Rollman was a high-salaried political appointee in the Hannemann administration and as far as I know still holds that job. He was the anonymous author of a vicious web site which attacked Neil on a myriad of irrelevant issues — for instance, mocking the novel Neil co-wrote with former Advertiser reporter Richard Hoyt — and even denegrating Neil’s wife. And Keith pops up with astonishing regularity whenever there’s an on-line opportunity to extol the virtues of his former boss or attack Neil Abercrombie. Keith has every right to be the Donald Segretti of the Hannemann campaign, but we really must draw the line when he tried to bamboozle us into believing he’s doing it for no other reason than personal friendship.
Quack, quack! Quack, quack, quack!
I almost let this one go, because it was a busy week. I decided to circle back and respond.
I like Jim Loomis and worked with him in the past on Fasi campaigns. He was, however, Neil Abercrombie’s ad agency for years, and spent a lot of time and money polishing Neil’s image, so I guess he takes it personally when others point out his friend’s shortcomings.
First of all, I’m not being paid for expressing my opinions on Neil, I’m doing it for free. You can check the campaign spending reports if you don’t believe me. Yes, it is because Hannemann is my friend, I thinks he’s the best candidate and I want him to win. It’s also out of a desire to use my insider knowledge to tell some unpleasant truths about Abercrombie. I resent my statements being called “smears” by individuals who would prefer that certain verifiable facts would remain hidden. Man up and refute the content, don’t just smear me and think I will go away.
Neil is asking us to make him Governor of Hawaii. He and anyone else aspiring to that office needs their entire public record examined in detail and shouldn’t be allowed to hide behind false charges of “negativism” and “dirty campaigning.”
Jim repeats the Abercrombie claim that my old AtomicMonkey site was “vicious.” The site was not “vicious,’ it simply provided a satirical look at some facts about Neil. The claims that it was something else came only after it taken down, so that people couldn’t judge it for themselves. There wasn’t a peep out of Jim or other Abercrombie supporters when it was up and running.
Check the truthfulness of everything you hear for yourself…do not take my word, or Jim’s or Ian’s. If you do not avail yourself of the facts and the truth, please do not vote.
Union endorsements are just that; endorsements. No different than an endorsement by other interest groups.
The big difference is when an organization or a committed group of individuals decides to take that endorsement/support to the next level and actually take action on someone’s race.
The majority of endorsements are “paper” endorsements. After all, very few groups have the capacity to target, say, fifty races and pour volunteers, time, money, etc. into them all. And that includes the two major political parties.
That said, in a close race, an endorsement can make a difference. No endorsement from any one organization in and of itself assures victory by any means.
Charles: Paper or not, I think you’d rather have the HGEA or HSTA or UPW endorsement than see your opponent with it. In certain races, as you point out, being able to tap “volunteers” from the union rolls is helpful- on Maui, where the entire County electorate votes for the County Council members, an ILWU and HGEA endorsement is strong stuff (highly populated and vote heavy Wailuku and Kahului have a lot of ILWU and HGEA households) in tight, competitive races (there are four candidates for the vacant Haiku-Makawao Council seat and seven candidates for the vacant Lahaina Council seat) in the “non-partisan” primary. If you gotta pick an endorsement, you’d want ILWU or HGEA.