06-20-2012, 06:38 AM
Rebuilder, you bring up an excellent point. Please attend one of the public meet-and-greets she'll be attending this weekend and ask her so we can all hear her response to the question of student loans. She will be in Hilo beginning at noon Saturday at the Hilo Hongwanji (across from Manono MiniMart), at Volcano Sunday at 9 a.m. at Kilauea Lodge, and at Nanawale Sunday at 2 p.m.
When the newcomers heading the Democratic Party in Kona tell me Mazie got beat by Lingle in 2002 and therefore it's proven that Mazie cannot beat the former governor, I tell them that EVERYONE was so disgusted with the Hawaii Dems after the terms of John Waihee and Ben Cayetano and Mazie got next to nothing in support from the good ole boys in her 2002 campaign for governor that for the first time, many of us jumped party lines to vote for Lingle, because we wanted honest change. Mazie had not built her own reputation at that time but now, a decade later, she has a very progressive, positive record to run on.
And Lingle proved herself to be totally false, and at least 2 of her top appointees ended up in prison for corruption and harassment. She left this state with an economic mess and it wasn't all external economic factors that created that mess!
Jerry Carr, you beat the same bush (as do I) about unionism and the corrupt good ole boys system here. I've had a front-row observer's seat to the DemParty machine since 1972 when I tried to vote in the Dem. caucus to elect McGovern and was home within 5 minutes since it was such a controlled meeting that there was no grass-roots public input, just the machine at the height of its power. It was only in 2008 when I was no longer beholden to publishers or the DOE that I started being an active political participant.
My point is that I'm very aware of the corruption of the machine here but I'm also able to analyze what's going on now realistically. And the machine is now well past its maturity and has no real organization outside of Sen. Inouye's office. Abercrombie has really declined in popularity among his own members since taking the governor's office and the party is much more split than I've ever been aware of, especially with the anti-environmental, anti-teachers (NOT anti-union but anti-teachers!) stance that the administration is pushing. And Mazie's Congressional record on the environment, on social issues, etc. is progressive, often in conflict with Sen. Inouye's more warlike profile.
Sorry, but Ed Case is a Republicrat and when we vote for someone as a Democrat, we need to know he is going to vote for Democratic values, not Republican ones. It's the Republicans who have held up the whole country's ability to deal with its domestic problems by refusing to compromise and pushing the GOP priority above all else of making sure Obama is a one-term president!
When the newcomers heading the Democratic Party in Kona tell me Mazie got beat by Lingle in 2002 and therefore it's proven that Mazie cannot beat the former governor, I tell them that EVERYONE was so disgusted with the Hawaii Dems after the terms of John Waihee and Ben Cayetano and Mazie got next to nothing in support from the good ole boys in her 2002 campaign for governor that for the first time, many of us jumped party lines to vote for Lingle, because we wanted honest change. Mazie had not built her own reputation at that time but now, a decade later, she has a very progressive, positive record to run on.
And Lingle proved herself to be totally false, and at least 2 of her top appointees ended up in prison for corruption and harassment. She left this state with an economic mess and it wasn't all external economic factors that created that mess!
Jerry Carr, you beat the same bush (as do I) about unionism and the corrupt good ole boys system here. I've had a front-row observer's seat to the DemParty machine since 1972 when I tried to vote in the Dem. caucus to elect McGovern and was home within 5 minutes since it was such a controlled meeting that there was no grass-roots public input, just the machine at the height of its power. It was only in 2008 when I was no longer beholden to publishers or the DOE that I started being an active political participant.
My point is that I'm very aware of the corruption of the machine here but I'm also able to analyze what's going on now realistically. And the machine is now well past its maturity and has no real organization outside of Sen. Inouye's office. Abercrombie has really declined in popularity among his own members since taking the governor's office and the party is much more split than I've ever been aware of, especially with the anti-environmental, anti-teachers (NOT anti-union but anti-teachers!) stance that the administration is pushing. And Mazie's Congressional record on the environment, on social issues, etc. is progressive, often in conflict with Sen. Inouye's more warlike profile.
Sorry, but Ed Case is a Republicrat and when we vote for someone as a Democrat, we need to know he is going to vote for Democratic values, not Republican ones. It's the Republicans who have held up the whole country's ability to deal with its domestic problems by refusing to compromise and pushing the GOP priority above all else of making sure Obama is a one-term president!