RECENTLY while out shopping, Donna Alcantara, the new chairwoman of the Hawaii Republican Party, was stopped by someone who gushed "You are in charge of the Republicans." Republican fight
for U.S. House berthAlcantara could only laugh.
"Are you kidding? No one is in charge of the Republicans," she said.
It's true. Time has changed the political affiliation in the Will Rogers witticism: "I belong to no organized political party; I'm a Democrat."
Today it is the local GOP that is rapidly offering up its own feet for target practice.
There is, of course, a certain lunacy about being interested in politics in a one-party state and deciding that you will dive into the losing side.
The Republicans may have both oars in the water, but they are on the same side of the boat. The latest example is the threatened GOP primary fight in the First Congressional District.
First up was state Rep. Quentin Kawananakoa, who announced his intentions to run for Congress against Democratic U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie.
He got an early pat on the back from Orson Swindle, who has twice run unsuccessfully against Abercrombie.
No one has ever beat an incumbent member of the Hawaii congressional delegation, so it didn't appear that Kawananakoa had much of a shot. But he comes from a famous family, appears to have the money for the race and is an attractive, well-spoken candidate.
So his fellow Republicans (Motto: "We eat our young") gave him just what was needed -- a potential primary fight.
Another Republican House member, Rep. Gene Ward, announced he too wanted to do battle with Abercrombie.
To make things official, Orson Swindle also showed up to endorse Ward.
Then last week, Ward let slip that what he really wanted to do was be an ambassador or head a United Nations agency.
Here's the math: If they both run, the GOP will have opened two state House seats to the Democrats, while gambling that one GOP candidate will beat a sitting Democratic congressman.
Party chairwoman Alcantara, however, says she has resigned herself to this sort of thing. She was on the losing end of a primary fight against Kawananakoa four years ago, so she can understand how nasty minority party primary fights can be.
You have few supporters to begin with and if they are forced to choose sides early on, the resulting fight is usually bitter.
DEMOCRATS have the ability to wage a primary fight that ends with a unity rally. Republicans seem to mistake primary races for a jihad that must be continued down through the ages.
Equally as damaging as a primary fight is the mere rumor of a primary fight, because it chases away the more stable supporters who want winners, not political purists.
So Alcantara is doing the only thing a rational person can do. She is looking for candidates to run for the state House to replace both Ward and Kawananakoa.
She reports that she has found several good candidates for Ward's usually Republican East Honolulu seat. Also she has a solid GOP candidates for the Punchbowl-Nuuanu district seat occupied by Kawananakoa.
The sounds she hears in her nightmares, however, is the boom of another GOP loose cannon going off.