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No problems A dazzling $5 million fireworks show and party welcomed Hawaii's delegation to the Republican National Convention last night.
expected at Philly
GOP show
The Hawaii delegation won't
fight the Republican Party's
anti-abortion position
By Craig Gima
Star-BulletinBut when the convention officially opens today, delegates do not expect any fireworks on the floor when the party platform, which retains a plank opposing abortion, is approved.
Hawaii's delegates are not interested in a floor fight that would distract from the convention script designed to showcase George W. Bush and his "compassionate conservative" policies.
Platforms are not necessarily the views of the party's presidential candidate but are influenced by the candidate and reflect the position of the party.
Hawaii's state platform supports a woman's right to choose an abortion except for so-called "partial-birth" abortions. The national platform calls for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion. Bush opposes abortions except in cases of rape or when a mother's life is threatened.
The Hawaii delegates met privately yesterday and decided not to join any effort to push the abortion issue on the floor as some pro-choice delegates from other states were advocating.
"I would have hoped that there could have been a change in the platform," said delegation leader Rep. Barbara Marumoto. But she and the delegation thought there wasn't any point in bringing the argument to the floor. "The feeling is let's go with the platform as is."
During the platform committee meeting Saturday, Hawaii delegate Dr. Phillip Hellrich, the president-elect of the Hawaii Medical Association, made national news when he led a push to adopt a plank calling for family planning clinics in schools.
It's a position he says George W. Bush supports.
"This is the party that abhors abortion, yet without contraception you are going to have more abortions," Hellrich said.
But social conservatives in the party defeated the amendment, arguing that only abstinence should be taught in schools.
Hawaii's other delegate on the platform committee, Janice Pechauer, voted against Hellrich's amendment.
"The Republican Party does not believe that contraceptives should be disbursed in schools," she said.
Hellrich was successful in adding planks to the platform calling for more funding for women's health research and a patient's bill of rights that would give patients the right to appeal decisions by insurance companies and to file lawsuits over those decision and to have decisions made in a timely fashion.
Tonight, delegates will hear speeches by Laura Bush, the wife of the nominee, who is expected to talk about literacy, and retired Gen. Colin Powell, now the chairman of American's Promise, a children' support group.
The theme of the evening is "Opportunity with a purpose: Leave no child behind." Speakers, many of them minorities, will talk about education, immigration and empowerment.
"I think that's an indication of where the party wants to go," Marumoto said.
But while Hawaii's delegation is diverse, most of the delegates to the convention -- 90-percent -- are white and most are male.
State GOP chairwoman Linda Lingle believes the national party is watching and learning from Hawaii about how to recruit minorities.
Lingle also applauds the party and Bush's move to the center.
"I think its a great move obviously because it matches up with our own (moderate state party)."
Hawaii Republicans really like Bush's policies on education, which include school vouchers to provide federal money to allow families from failing school districts to send their children to private school.
"If anyone has been failed by the existing school system its those in the poorest neighborhoods," Lingle said.
Hellrich also likes the education platform.
"Why should only the rich be able to send their kids to Punahou?" he asked.