BACK in my younger days, before the twin forces of fatherhood and mortgagehood were hoisted upon my shoulders, I considered running for public office. Bu causes Greens
to see redI didn't want to actually win an election. I just wanted to run. My idea was to form the Party Party, whose goal would be to throw a series of great parties during the election season, subsidized by government matching campaign funds.
As candidate, I would hold several news conferences where my answer to any question posed to me by the press would be "No Comment."
The satirical possibilities of the Party Party were many.
Now comes Bu La'ia, the moke-like character with terminally uku hair and a missing tooth that seems to never be missing in the same place twice.
He is taking the Party Party concept one step further. Bu, for the time being, is running for governor. He apparently sees a campaign for governor not just as a way to have some fun with the establishment, but as a money-making enterprise.
This is refreshing, because most candidates who don't have a chance to win an election find out that campaigns are financial black holes that suck in money like a cosmic Hoover.
Bu is a social commentator, whether he likes it or not. I don't know him. I should say, I don't know the guy under the ratty wig, Kaui Hill. But I've gotten a blast out of him going back to his early public access TV days.
Hill's ability for improvisation and contemporaneous speech, not to mention his ability to project the essential elements of moke-ness, are awesome.
Hill discovered early on that by simply putting Bu La'ia in certain situations, he was able to become a mirror to society.
Now, Hill is using Bu La'ia to show us how fickle and phony politicians can be. And that politics is a contact sport where participants have little, if any, sense of humor.
His run for governor in 1994 was cut short because he was under age.
This year, he announced he was running for governor as a Green Party candidate. His running mate dropped out of the race, saying that Bu was only in it for the money -- money to be made from the sale of T-shirts and bumper stickers.
If true, Hill will be the state's first honest candidate, the first one to actually say that he was in it for the money. The worst you can do is accuse Hill of thinking small.
He hoped to make a few bucks from manini product sales. Were he a serious candidate, he would be trying to make money by getting his friends jobs, making sure his family members are on the receiving end of government contracts and setting up lucrative post-government employment by kissing up to organizations like the Bishop Estate. You'll never see candidates admit that.
Bu also is exposing the Green Party as a bunch of self-important whiners, not the party of the disenfranchised it claims to be.
I've come to think of the Green Party as the Political Remnant Party, made up of alienated Democrats, confused Republicans, environmental extremists, aging hippies, militant feminists, feminine militants, the sexually ambiguous and people with too many cats. (I'm joking. But I promise you, the Green Party will NOT find that line amusing.)
The idea that the Green Party has no room for Bu La'ia in its political-side-show circus tent is astounding.
"This is no longer funny," a Green Party big shot committeeman declared, as they raced to court to get Bu booted off the ticket before the primary election.
Wrong, sir. It is just getting funny. Let the party begin.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to charley@nomayo.com or
71224.113@compuserve.com.
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