Honolulu Lite
There’s no free lunch,
but this comes closeThe race to fill the late Rep. Patsy Mink's seat in Congress is turning into something of a Blue Light special, with bargain-hunting candidates realizing that they will never again be able to run for such a high national office so cheaply.
Just what everyone's running for is another question. There's going to be a special election to fill the last few weeks Mink would have served in her current two-year term. There will be another special election to fill the next few years if, as expected, Mink is elected post mortem. Or the Democrats could pull off a New Jersey-type deal where Mink's name is pulled from the Nov. 5 general election ballot and the name of another Democrat is installed. This happened in the case of New Jersey Rep. Robert Torricelli, who, after suffering merely a political death following bribery allegations, withdrew from the race. Although the deadline for replacing him on the ballot had passed, the Dems coughed up a barely living former Congressman with plenty of dough and put him into the election. The New Jersey Supreme Court said that was swell, even though it violated state law, and the U.S. Supreme Court, still smarting from the Bush/Gore Florida voting debacle, benched itself.
With the New Jersey case as a precedent -- and it's scary when New Jersey is a precedent for ANYTHING -- Hawaii Democrats will try the same gambit. It's unclear how the Democratic Party in Hawaii will choose someone to replace Mink in the general election, but you gotta figure it's going to be a lot of fun to watch. Despite the warm and fuzzy post-primary reunification efforts, wounds are still raw and a free-for-all for Mink's seat promises to be entertaining.
ALREADY, high-profile folks like Ed Case and John Waihee have said they will run to fill Mink's term till the end of the year. So have lots of other people, including former city councilman and perennial candidate for just about anything Kekoa Kuapu. That's the Blue Plate special race because there's not much time to spend money, even if the candidates have it.
Waihee, who lives in Washington now as a lobbyist, probably is in the best shape with name recognition, money and the ability to play on the sudden nostalgia of Mink's passing. Case, who lost against Mazie Hirono for governor in the primary, would be a good bet if the public, as Republican candidate for governor Linda Lingle is hoping, is ready for change and not for another stroll down memory lane. Or we should say, Lack-of-Memory Lane, since voters will have to contract self-imposed amnesia to overlook the state's crummy business climate, crumbling public education system and a smorgasbord of political corruption in order to replace Mink with a face from the political past while humming "The Way We Were."
The main thing is that if you ever want to be able to tell your grandkids that you ran for U.S. Congress once upon a time, now's the time to register. It's a bargain.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com