11-30-2011, 04:33 PM
Someone can be "a good woman" and still cut a back room deal that reeks of old boy Hawaii politics. I liked her positions when she was running, but aligning with Fred right after running against him as being incompetent to serve just seems opportunistic at best.
As for how someone responds after an election, I know from watching my mother unsuccessfully run for county commissioner when I was a kid what a roller coaster ride running for office is. She lost for a lot of the same reasons James did, even after 20 years in the community she was still considered an outsider due to her education, place of birth and gender. She too was called thin skinned afterward for expressing how it felt to lose for those reasons. The internet has just magnified the focus on those sorts of mid November responses. I don't think any of us can really know how we would respond in the same situation until we take that kind of personal risk and lose.
The ironic thing is my mother was begged by both parties to run for judge 15 years later after serving as both public defender and prosecutor in the county, and then served as many terms as she wanted afterwards, so James may grow from the experience and still successfully serve Puna. He is a good person who probably should have stepped away from the keyboard for a month or so after the election, until he processed the election, but he was only motivated by a desire to serve the people of Puna when he ran. That is to be commended.
I could never put it all out there on the line the way people have to when they run for office. Talk about a painful process, you have to either really want something out of it, or really care about your community. I just feel like Fred and his staff only care about some parts of the community, so I do question what they want out of it. I would love to see something different come from them, but I sure haven't seen any sign that they care about the concerns of the 30,000+ people in Puna who don't live between Pahoa and the bottom of the Hawaiian Beaches/Shores complex of subdivisions. I am not the only person who feels that way, if that is not the case, they need to make a real effort to reach out to the wider Puna community and let us know they care about our concerns. It wouldn't be that hard.
Carol
As for how someone responds after an election, I know from watching my mother unsuccessfully run for county commissioner when I was a kid what a roller coaster ride running for office is. She lost for a lot of the same reasons James did, even after 20 years in the community she was still considered an outsider due to her education, place of birth and gender. She too was called thin skinned afterward for expressing how it felt to lose for those reasons. The internet has just magnified the focus on those sorts of mid November responses. I don't think any of us can really know how we would respond in the same situation until we take that kind of personal risk and lose.
The ironic thing is my mother was begged by both parties to run for judge 15 years later after serving as both public defender and prosecutor in the county, and then served as many terms as she wanted afterwards, so James may grow from the experience and still successfully serve Puna. He is a good person who probably should have stepped away from the keyboard for a month or so after the election, until he processed the election, but he was only motivated by a desire to serve the people of Puna when he ran. That is to be commended.
I could never put it all out there on the line the way people have to when they run for office. Talk about a painful process, you have to either really want something out of it, or really care about your community. I just feel like Fred and his staff only care about some parts of the community, so I do question what they want out of it. I would love to see something different come from them, but I sure haven't seen any sign that they care about the concerns of the 30,000+ people in Puna who don't live between Pahoa and the bottom of the Hawaiian Beaches/Shores complex of subdivisions. I am not the only person who feels that way, if that is not the case, they need to make a real effort to reach out to the wider Puna community and let us know they care about our concerns. It wouldn't be that hard.
Carol
Carol
Every time you feel yourself getting pulled into other people's nonsense, repeat these words: Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Polish Proverb
Every time you feel yourself getting pulled into other people's nonsense, repeat these words: Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Polish Proverb