“Aloha” Means Hello and Goodbye, You Old Goats … The powerful Democratic party machine in Hawaii has just endorsed incumbent U.S. Senator Daniel Akaka over challenger, U.S. Rep. Ed Case [PHOTO] (since Patty Mink’s death, twice reelected to Hawaii’s sole House seat).
Hawaiians share West Virginians’ problem — but times two. Both of their U.S. Senators will soon be in their 80s. Akaka is 81 years old. Case is warning his fellow Dems that “the state would lose all clout in Washington if the state’s two US Senators, both of whom are over 80 years old, leave office within a short time of each other.”
Case knows about fighting Hawaii’s Dem party machine. Case challenged several insider Dems in the 2002 Democratic gubernatorial primary – “[r]iding on public anger over the status quo under the leadership of what was collectively known as the “Old Boys’ Network” of Hawai’i politics” – but narrowly lost. Check out Ed Case’s campaign Web site and MrLiberal’s Jan. diary at DailyKos.
P.S. I have nothing against elderly people in office. But it’s a worry from a practical political standpoint, especially for six-year Senate terms.
Do We Have an Issue to Turn Granny and Gramps into Ragin’ Dems?! Maybe We Do! … “Older voters, a critical component of Republican Congressional victories for more than a decade, could end up being a major vulnerability for the party in this year’s midterm elections, according to strategists in both parties. Paradoxically, one reason is the new Medicare drug benefit, which was intended to cement their loyalty.” (today’s NYT) Our Street Kid has done superb muckraking on this issue. In my own informal “man on the street” interviewing, I get mixed feedback. I always have to wait in line for my prescriptions, so I strike up conversations: The seniors I’ve talked to are mostly not unhappy and had no trouble signing up. My aunt tells me it wasn’t a big deal. Yet, I read lots of horror stories in the local papers about people who can’t get life-saving drugs. We shall see. If it is an issue — and I agree with Street Kid that it is — let’s read her work and get informed so we can spread her knowledge. (And, we want to correct these problems so that, as Ductapefatwa has alleged, the GOP can’t fix the budget by killing off all the old and disabled people. Ducky’s wry humor often has the ring of truth.)
Kitschy Brunch Mini-Quiches … The prez, reports Fred Barnes via the NYT, met with Michael Crichton, whose nutty novel, “State of Fear,” “suggests that global warming is an unproven theory and an overstated threat.” …
Montana’s three-term GOP senator, Conrad Burns, is being hurt badly by his ties to Abramoff, reports the L.A. Times today: “Some surveys show him tied or trailing his two leading Democratic opponents — state Auditor John Morrison and state Senate President Jon Tester.” Also, Burns is another aging pol: He’s 71 so probably has one more term left in him. Kos is actively backing Jon Tester, “an awesome guy, awesome candidate, the Montana netroots loves him, and he’ll win his primary and take out Conrad Burns” (written in August 2004).
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Predictably, the congressional ethics probe is lagging, reports The Seattle Times/WaPo. “The rush to revise ethics laws in light of the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal has turned into more of a saunter. … The primary holdup is in the House.” Now if they can just postpone until mid-November.
Good morning Susan. I am glad to see the references to Street Kid and her work. She is one of a number of diarists we are fortunate to have here that keep us updated about important topics that sometimes slip off the radar screen when some distraction, like our gun toting Veep, manage to suck all of the oxygen out of the news cycle. Others include soj on the spying scandal(s), Egarwaen and Knoxville Progressive on environmental issues, Oui on news from outside the US Public’s bubble, Aaron for Canadian political news, Boston Joe, Tampopo and a host of others on activism issues, and so many other diarists here (who I hope will forgive me for not thinking of them by name on a bleary eyed Sunday morning after I stayed up to late watching new dvd releases of the restored edition of Spartacus, and a new Criterion edition of Kurosa’s Ran).
I feel fortunate to be surrounded by so many diligent and well informed people at Booman who are willing to share what they know or have discovered.
Yes. I’ve promoted her diaries twice, as have you. She’s doing real original work on this issue, and making sure we pay attention. We’re very lucky she’s here, along with so many you mention.
And thanks to you and BooMan too. My answer to Steven D applies to both of you also.
Thanks Steven. You know, that is one of the things that I like most about this blog–how everyone works on a specific area/policy that they feel is the most important. And the willingness of other writers to help out/assist w/info, answer questions, post links that may have been missed, and so on. I’m really glad that I am here.
I was reading my local news this morning and I saw this blurb about the race for state auditor (you know, the person who AUDITS the use of government funds and who is held to a high standard of fiduciary duty to the taxpayers):
Sometimes you can only laugh.
If I wasn’t an American I would describe our current situation as farce. Sadly, for me it is an ongoing tragedy.
Oh lawdy. We know about that up here.
In 2000, new to the area, we worked on a progressive’s campaign for county auditor.
The local paper investigated the incumbent auditor. She had always claimed in her campaign materials — and in her business’s Yellow Pages advertising, brochures, and office signage — to be a C.P.A.
She’s never been a CPA. Never passed the test. There was other stuff I now forget.
But, the sad part is that apparently not enough people read the paper, and voted for the incumbent. Sigh.
This is a really great piece by Leonard Pitts Jr. (I know this isn’t an officially designated open thread but Pitts’ piece is political in nature so I thought it appropriate to link it here.)
Link here.
Excellent column. If we had an oppostion party it would be paraphrased in every campaign for every office.
Yes! Sadly, there’s no opposition party in evidence.
Pitts is consistently my favorite op-ed writer. His home paper is the Miami Herald, and his columns usually appear in the Baltimore Sun as well. I read him regularly and wish others would get in the habit of doing so too. His insights are always right on the money.
Here’s a link to several of his recent columns.
I remember the idea being bandied about when Strom Thurmond was still kicking around the Senate, and also when Ronald Reagan was starting to show signs of losing it. I’m starting to wonder…
Robert Byrd.
There’s a lot he’s done that’s good, a lot that’s bad.
But the best thing he could do, imho, would be to find and groom the brightest young Dem start in West Virginia, back him to the hilt, wield all of his considerable power, and annoint the young Dem in 2006 as W.V.’s new Democratic senator.
If he runs again, and this time against a millionaire Republican, people will scrutinize him for his age (it’s really showing), and they might vote GOP. That’d be very bad.
I wish Robert Byrd could see the future, and help us keep two Democratic senators from W.V.
No. In a democracy (or whatever nightmare we have here these days) people can decide for themselves whether someone is incapable. This being America they’ll probably elect the incapable one, but that’s the risk you take.
As to Reagan, he was showing signs of losing at birth and the deterioration continued unabated until he died.
…in Hawaiian politics.
Representative Ed Case is a white guy.
Being white IS a factor in Hawaiian politics.
What kind of racism?
Simply put, there are voters in Hawaii who won’t vote for Ed Case because he’s white.
I realise there is a prevailing theory that non-whites cannot practise racism, because they define racism as the oppression of a minority group by a majority group–but whites are actually the minority in Hawaii.
That is not to say that all voters in Hawaii are prejudiced against whites–but a white person running for statewide office faces the same uphill battle an Asian or black or Latino person faces in running for statewide office in the other states in the Union.
I used to have a white roommate from Hawaii. His brother was an award winning surfer. He was born and raised in Hawaii. And he used to tell me stories about the racism he experienced there.
The worst of it was when he stole the wave of a Hawaiian and was knocked unconcious in the ocean and almost drowned.
I supposed that could happen to any rude surfer but he interpreted as happening because he was white.
Laird Hamilton is blonde, blue-eyed surfer who is a world champion. Laird grew up in Hawaii and tells stories of being physically and verbally harassed by his non-white classmates at school…until Laird grew a foot taller than they did and started pounding the living crap out of the bullies. Laird was the only white kid in most of his classes.
That is not to say that all non-white Hawaiians are racist–but it seems that whenever a group is in the majority, it seems to encourage the racists in its group to express their bigotry.
And I believe that Mr. Case’s white skin is a significant–although not the only–factor in his bid for statewide office.
I lived in Hawaii for many years and I can tell you all with certainty that racism is institutionalized across the entire breadth of society there. Not everyone is overtly driven by it, but it forms a pervasive backdrop for society as a whole, and whether it’s “local” vs. “haole” in the surf line up or gang/ neighborhood stuff, or the separate ethnic identity of the major population groups there, all of itlays heavily into the electoral calculus.
People talk about how “island fever”, (i.e. geographical claustrophobia) is a major cause of why many people who move there don’t stay all that long, but I have to say that the racial divisiveness, even though in many ways less demonstrative than the sort of violent racism practised on the American mainland, is nonetheless so widespread and endemic to the culture there that it does wear on the psyche quite a bit over time.
Should be; “…all of it plays heavily into the electoral calculus”.
There isn’t such a place, is there?
Except maybe Philadelphia.
Maybe Bhutan.
If it does, then it’s not paradise.
Hate Starbucks.
No Starbucks! I don’t think they even have TV!
Some TV show … trying to remember which … recently did a lovely story on Bhutan. I think they have tv. They’re also getting all the electronic gadgetry, etc. They worry it’ll change things.
But it sounds like such a lovely place.
I’d love to visit if they have wireless. (Snort)
If they had internet access and a place to live in a warm commune for a poor somewhat disabled guy like me, I’d roll up all my coins and move there in a minute.
There is a Paradise, MI–in the UP–beautiful!! And, there is also a Hell, MI. Standing joke in the winter is whether or not Hell froze over. Someone from the national weather service used to always call and ask either a bar/party store that. Answer was always, no. But, the no was describing Hell Creek–it doesn’t freeze as the current is too swift!
Lest what I say above about racism in Hawaii come across as myopic or otherwise only a partial analysis, I should point out that with respect to enmity against “whites” in Hawaii, the depradations of first the Europeans and then America missionaries on the native peoples there form the cultural background out of which such enmity originated.
And the militaristic overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy by American forces and effective colonization of the islands asa result of that overthrow formed the foundation upon which much political enmity against “whites” was originally derived.
I bring these things up not to excuse racism in any way, but to simply describe a context wherein the originating factors out of which such racism devolved are understood to have legitimacy in their own right, even if the subsequent racism does not.
That’s all true. But for purposes of our discussion, which is the effect being white has on politics in Hawaii, the origins of the racist attitudes don’t matter much one way or the other.
I’m not saying Case can’t be elected statewide, but being white is going to make it hard on him.
The fact that Case is a white anglo I think is pretty much irrelevant to his electoral chances. He’s running against Dan Akaka who is both very popular, very well conneceted and very well funded. Race plays virtually no part in this contest, methinks.
Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but running based on the idea that the fellow Dem who holds the seat is old and might retire or croak at an inopportune moment and so jeopardize the partisan advantage in the state strikes me as somehow pathetic. If this was Case’s primary argument, I doubt it would be enough to get my vote unless his opponent demonstrated some really nasty, Lieberman-like undemocratic behavior.
Was in Hawaii when I was in my teens. And I really felt sorry for the native Hawaiians. Seems to me that they have a lot in common w/native Americans. Such a beautiful place has been turned into a tourist trap.
The flaw in your argument is that he’s been twice elected as U.S. Rep. for the entire state.
He’s won statewide. Why can’t he win a senate seat?
Oh … I wrote to him, btw, and he wrote me right back — very impressive. he corrected a couple things in my story, including Akaka’s age (81). 81 years old. it’s time, Akaka. It’s time.
Yeah, well, Crichton’s basic understanding of science (if he had any) was so perverted when he wrote Jurassic Park that I think we can all safely point our fingers at him and make him a laughing stock over his latest novel.
In case you’re wondering, while there’s a remote possibility that dinosaurs could be cloned, it won’t be from fossils. DNA has to come from organic material, not material turned to stone. So, find me a dinosaur encased in amber and I’ll see what I can do. [Yes, I remember vaguely that Cricton wiggled around this problem in his novel.]
Besides the first hurdle, cloned specimens could only live outside a germ-free environment about 7-14 days before modern viruses attack and destroy them. They’d have absolutely no immunity to any microbes in today’s environment.
Then consider, are their digestive tracts able to handle the plants presently on Earth? Jurassic plants are no more. I imagine the herbivores would starve.
The list of scientific objections to Crichton hoo-haw seems endless. Even fiction has to be believable on some level, and this is more true of science fiction.
Crichton outed himself as far right-wing apologist (not to mention misogynist) a long time ago.
Oh, and he’s rude too. I saw him at a book signing once and he taunted a small boy for being fat.
Now xposted at dkos.
Reccommendations appreciated.
Thanks.