Isle GOP looks to
keep ball rollingRepublicans hope momentum
goes their way to control
of the state House
Hawaii's Republicans are opening up what they say will be their most crucial campaign season.
The goal is to pick up 11 seats to take control of the state House and reverse 50 years of Democratic control.
As the GOP ended its annual convention yesterday at the Sheraton Waikiki hotel, the 422 delegates went away with promises to help as many new candidates as possible.
"This is the most critical year," said Rep. Kika Bukoski (R, Pukalani-Ulupalakua). "The momentum is definitely on our side. We are either going to use that momentum, or we will lose it."
Party leaders have rounded up what they think will be a new group of candidates who, unlike in past GOP campaigns, look more like the population of Hawaii.
Kymberly Pine, a Filipino American who is the House GOP research director, is running for the 43rd District, Ewa Beach to Iroquois Point. Although coming from a Democratic background and running in a solid blue-collar Democratic neighborhood, Pine is optimistic.
"Democrats are going to be talking about how evil George Bush is, and I'm talking about helping Ewa Beach," Pine said. "I think we are the party of the people. I was raised on the stories that my grandma told me about how the plantation workers rose up against those who abuse their power. When I see what the Democrats do, I am reminded of those stories from my grandma."
Meiling Akuna, a Hawaiian-Chinese-American taro farmer from the isolated Hana community of Keanae, used to support the Green Party.
"The attack in 2001, 9/11, convinced me to be a Republican because of the admiration I have for a great world leader, George W. Bush," Akuna said.
Akuna is running for the state House in the 13th District of Hana, Lanai and Molokai.
"I am running because I see a need to change the status quo in government," Akuna said.
That feeling of a need for change is what party leaders hope will propel the party to victory.
Kitty Lagareta, a public relations and communication expert who has worked with the Republicans since Linda Lingle first ran for governor in 1998, said the feeling of change is taking hold in the minds of voters.
"We are able to energize so many people because of what is not happening here," Lagareta said.
Lagareta sees the GOP becoming an established part of the political scene, something that had been lacking in previous years.
"I think people are now proud to say they are Republicans, we are about change and we are about people. We are doing what is right for Hawaii, and I think there has been a profound sense that is not what the Democrats have been about," Lagareta said.
But Brickwood Galuteria, the new Democratic Party chairman, discounted the GOP optimism. "There has been more of a dismissive and arrogant attitude coming out of this administration than ever before. If there is anything that mirrors a plantation mentality, it is that," Galuteria said.
Republicans also hope to ride on the coattails of Lingle, who is devoting much time to helping groom candidates and raise money for them.
Besides money and advice, Lingle is also giving the GOP newcomers an issue to run on: local control of education. After winning election in 2002 on a platform that called for local school boards instead of the single, centralized state administration, Lingle's school reform proposals have been rebuffed by the Democratic-controlled Legislature. But she intends to keep up the pressure and has candidates to talk it up.
"I think it is going to play all across the state," said Rep. Chris Halford (R, Makena-Kihei). "In my district they say that local school boards are a good deal."
He figures that Democrats will be forced during the summer to defend their decision to modify school funding and structure instead of implementing a dramatic overhaul.
Democrats, however, say Lingle has missed the point.
"There is a lot of difference between more school boards and more books," Galuteria said.