An established organization decides to back Neil Abercrombie in the Democratic primary race for governor and then find itself confronted by a newly-formed group adopting a very similar name and announcing its support for Abercrombie’s opponent, former Honolulu mayor Mufi Hannemann.
When it happened recently to the Hawaii Venture Capital Association, it made news.
But when the same thing happened to the liberal-leaning Progressive Democrats of Hawaii earlier this year, it went largely unnoticed by all but a handful of Democratic Party activists.
The Progressive Democrats of Hawaii (PDH) are an established group within the Hawaii Democratic Party which was organized in 2005 and held its first general meeting in January 2006. It has a website, blog, has sponsored many events, and maintains an active presence on facebook.
But just days after the 2010 Democratic Party of Hawaii State Convention, where it was clear that PDH and its members supported Abercrombie, a new group calling itself “Progressive Democrats for Hannemann” (also with initials PDH) suddenly appeared with its own facebook page.
The new group was the effort of Trisha Kehau Watson, a consultant who describes herself as a “policy advisor” to Hannemann’s campaign.
In an earlier telephone interview, Watson said she joined the Democratic Party for the first time earlier this year. She quickly caught the political bug and, with the support of some friends, ran at the convention for a slot on the State Central Committee against an active member and officer of Progressive Democrats of Hawaii. A tie vote was resolved through a two-out-of-three match of jan ken po. Watson lost.
Watson was obviously unhappy about her personal loss, and also felt she was subject to unfair personal attacks during the convention election process (she was referred to as a “Mufi-bot” in one exchange) and by hostile comments towards Hannemann by members of Progressive Democrats.
Watson said:
“I genuinely like and believe in Mufi. I am a strong supporter of rail. I really love his support for Hawaiians and Hawaiian issues. I have always found him to be a great leader and strong environmentalist. I firmly and absolutely believe he is the governor we need to help address the needs of Hawaiians going into the future. “
The result was Progressive Democrats for Hannemann, which Watson readily acknowledges has “absolutely no crossover” with Progressive Democrats of Hawaii.
It’s probably no surprise that, according to one of the Hannemann campaign’s facebook pages, Watson is also co-chair of another group, Hawaiians for Mufi.
A longtime member of the original Progressive Democrats of Hawaii said the group spent weeks discussing whether to respond publicly to Watson’s appropriation of the “Progressive Democrats” label, but eventually decided it would not be worth the effort.
“If they wanna start their own group, they should try another name,” he said.