“Karen from Maui” has another interesting piece posted on the Daily Kos (“The next Patsy Mink just might be a skinny Jewish kid“).
The article begins by praising the progressive legislative legacy of Hawaii’s Patsy Mink, and goes on to describe Senator Brian Schatz as someone with similar values and goals as Mink, while Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, his 2014 primary opponent, is characterized as a political opponent of Mink.
Indeed, Hanabusa had considered trying to oust Mink from Congress in the ’02 election.
Her potential candidacy was so serious the Honolulu Advertiser wrote about possible successors for her seat in the state senate as early as 2001.
On March 10, 2002, conservative Advertiser columnist Bob Dye was still urging Hanabusa to challenge Mink.
In addition to attacking Mink on defense, Hanabusa was clearly going to assert Mink was too pro-union.
As reported in a Pacific Business News article entitled “Union influence wanes as major reforms pass” on May 6, 2001, Hanabusa was said to have “steamrolled” anti-labor bills through the legislature and was so emboldened that she was thinking about challenging Mink from the right with corporate support.
Ultimately, Hanabusa instead returned to the state legislature, where she became senate president.
In that role, she refused to fight for civil unions or emergency contraception, despite that both were part of the Democratic Party platform and the Democrats had a massive majority.
Meanwhile, Senator David Ige’s announcement that he will challenge Gov. Abercrombie next year is being interpreted as a political harassment strategy by the Inouye-Hanabusa faction of the Democratic Party. While I haven’t heard anyone who believes Ige can come from relative obscurity to capture the governorship, his entry into the race will require Abercrombie’s political attention and detract from his ability to campaign actively for Schatz, thereby boosting Hanabusa’s campaign prospects.
One unverified rumor has it that Ige was asked to enter the race by former Gov. George Ariyoshi.
We’re still more than a year out from the primary election. Hold on to your seats.
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So what primary ideology or purpose is Hawaii’s Democratic Party actually committed to?
Crush the progressives? Keep a certain ethnic group in power?
The ethnic Japanese are stereotyped as quiet but effective, and always supporting their own against outsiders. On July 5 I made my annual pilgrimage to Kane’ohe Higashi Hongwanji to attend the temple service and the Bon dance. And guess who also showed up? My state Rep Ken Ito, my state Senator Jill Tokuda; and Colleen Hanabusa; attending as a threepack. Ito comes every year, but never dances. Tokuda comes in occasional years, but never dances. Hanabusa has never been to this temple before, so far as I know. But she participated actively in the middle of the pack circling around the yagura, for at least 5 dances; and of course during other times she was gladhanding and politicking. She clearly knew all the right dance moves and was not imitating anyone. During two of the dances she gave instruction to a 7-8 year old girl with whom she had no apparent relationship other than just being there. I don’t know whether she knows the words or the stories (harvesting crops, fishing, etc), but her cultural affiliation is clearly authentic and not merely for political showmanship. As I sat on the temple steps enjoying the event, Ken Ito came over to me and said “You know, Colleen Hanabusa is a LOT smarter than Brian Schatz so I’m encouraging people to vote for her.” So it looks like Hanabusa has a lock on the “Japanese vote” to whatever extent ethnic bloc voting is still practiced (bigtime!). To call Hanabusa conservative is way off the mark, but I suppose that by comparison to Schatz she’s somewhat palatable. I’ll probably vote for her, despite the radical Dems who would like to bar me from the primary.
My gosh! Didn’t get into much depth into her hand-holding background. I’d never vote for her!
I’m wondering about the domino effects Ige running for gov.
E.g., how will that change the senate leadership? Someone else will become Ways and Means Chair, which could precipitate the falling of one set of dominos.
Who will replace him in the Senate? If Mark Takai decides to run, that will change the makeup of the House, which could affect the House leadership.
wow. actual competition in politics in Hawaii, post-Lingle. hold the kokua line.
Its unfortunate to learn that a Representative as seasoned and respected as Rep Ito would take to personalized attacks such as a comparison of the candidates intelligence.
What’s next? “She looks like us”??
Oh wait…in Ken’s case its “she dances like us”? Is that really all it took to sway you, Ken? Her cultural affiliation, as evidenced by her bon dancing? Really?
May I suggest that we stick to the issues? We are, afterall, talking about the next couple of decades here – Im sorry if Im painfully hopeful that the campaigns will actually focus on our problems, solutions, and our futures, and not who is the next star of “So You Think You Can (Bon) Dance”.
Arent there more than enough problems, locally and nationally, to dissect than to allow the political dialog to digress to personalized low-level whispered attacks? Exactly because Colleen Hanabusa is an intelligent woman is exactly why I would hope for high-level intellect instilled at all levels of her campaign.
Let us all be a part of raising the level of dialog throughout this very, very important campaign. Let us Not allow it to be a repeat of the disgusting Caldwell-Cayetano race. Every time we see or hear something that is less than respectful – can we please call the candidate on it?
Let us ALL, every one of us, be a part of the consciousness that we want in Hawaii’s campaigns.
AJA voters who would be swayed by something as irrelevant as a candidate’s moves at a Bon dance are pretty much one and the same with those who already decided to support Hanabusa for no other reason than it was Inouye’s final wish. We’re talking about the same group of people for whom the battle cry of “Remember 1954!” still holds meaning.
To be honest, one would be hard pressed to find members of the sansei generation and beyond who would be able to authoritatively distinguish between what movements does and doesn’t constitute “authentic” Bon dancing, let alone have that play any part in deciding who to vote for.
Ian…an “unverified rumour” is exactly that: not worth reporting.
There are so many different types of intelligence, I don’t think it is very easy to decide which of the two candidates is more intelligent. Can we grant they are BOTH fairly intelligent and move onto other criteria for judging them?
And while their stands on “the issues” are important to me, I disagree our choice should be solely based upon their promises, position papers or even past voting records on “the issues.” Personal traits, like character, honesty, effectiveness, etc., are all worthy of some consideration as well.
I appreciate “Karen from Maui” doing this research. (Don’t know if I would call Bob Dye a “conservative,” but maybe my memories of him are distorted by personal ties?)
I am well aware Hanabusa sandbagged civil unions while president of the Senate and was very underhanded and sneaky with how she did it. Her motives in transforming from a supporter of Civil Unions into a saboteur of the efforts are not completely clear to me. But it marked her as extremely untrustworthy to me.
I guess I may be alone in seeing her willingness to join in the Bon dance as a positive thing? In their defense, both Jill Tokuda and Ken Ito strike me as shy folks. But good for Colleen that she had no such inhibitions. Having “a common touch” is not necessarily all contrived. It may express an ability to connect to people in important ways. OTOH, Huey Long and a lot of other scoundrel politicians used their ability to connect with common folk as an opportunity to pick their pockets.
I look forward to a long, drawn out and HOPEFULLY enlightening campaign. I advise both campaigns to keep their “surrogates” under control as voters have become more sophisticated in blaming the candidates for things being done and said by pseudo-“independent” operators. If a candidate attracts support from scum, that should serve as a warning to the rest of us.
Let the games begin!
Cute trick, Ian. Report Karen’s unsupported rants and the “unverified rumors” that came from the same place as the rumors that Inouye didn’t really write the letter about succession, that Hanabusa was definitely going to run for governor, or, the latest, that she is going to drop out of the Senate race.
If you had checked Karen’s reference on the claim that Hanabusa planned to run against Mink, you’d find that it was an unsupported statement made either by an angry HGEA executive or the repoter himself; it’s not clear from the sloppy writing in the PBN article. No clear attribution, no backup, no quote. Another rumor.
So what I get from this is by saying, “Look what Karen said,” you get away with spreading dirt clearly intended to benefit Hanabusa’s opponent. I expect that from Matt Drudge, not you.
Note to Kolea: Hanabusa is a Buddhist. Her family has been with the Hongwanji in Waianae for generations. She goes to Bon dances because they are personally meaningful for her, and she knows the dances because she has been doing them her whole life.
Finally, on Ige’s chances, who really thought Tulsi Gabbard could have come from behind to beat Mufi Hannemann?
TKeiko,
I never criticized Hanabusa for dancing the bon dance. Yep, she’s a Buddhist. I don’t know either Tokuda or Ige’s religion. I do know they are both shy and Colleen does not seem to suffer from that.
Tulsi’s unexpected victory over Mufi should be a cautionary tale for Neil. But also for Colleen. A lot of Democratic primary voters are tired of our political system being dominated by the Old Boy, crony-capitalism both Mufi and Hanabusa specialize in. That tide is much more likely to wash AGAINST Hanabusa than work in her favor. “Jeff Stone, Bishop Estate trustees, yada, yada….” I could go on.