07-10-2026, 04:51 PM
I backed a candidate once, not so much by choice (I was against the idea in fact) but by association. It was a case of being a part of something that ran its course and some of the folks involved decided to focus on electing one of our members to the county council as a means of infiltrating them with our ideas. The initial cause was Puna Geothermal Committee which ended up using the funds left over from fighting through the courts to stop geothermal from making a landfall in Volcano to getting one of our members, Russell Kokubun, elected to the Hawaii County Council. From there Russell went on to state politics and eventually because very influential in the state Senate.
The night Russell won to become a member of the county council we all got together to gleefully celebrate, and Russell said something to the effect of, don’t count on him for anything, as a first term member he intended to watch and wait, and ingratiate himself so as to earn some political capital before he did anything substantial. When Russell did become an active force in his own right he wasn’t the same guy we all knew before. At all. In fact his ideas, his policies were often contrary to what we, as a group, in the earlier years, would share. Once, when I asked him about that he came back with some version of we all learn from our experiences, and if a politician wants to get anything done they have to learn how to get along.
I think, upon reflection, that lesson is played out over and over through the rather odd bunch we would call Puna’s alumni of politicians. Most, who have by not learning that lesson, come home after short stints with little to show for their efforts. While the ones that have survived long enough to become influential have done so by morphing into something compatible with the political body more than being a representative of their initial ideals. It’s the nature of the beast.
I wish Tam luck, but hear his words, the ideas you all have shared of his, and hear exuberance and zeal, which is tempered by my memories of those that have taken that ride before him.
The night Russell won to become a member of the county council we all got together to gleefully celebrate, and Russell said something to the effect of, don’t count on him for anything, as a first term member he intended to watch and wait, and ingratiate himself so as to earn some political capital before he did anything substantial. When Russell did become an active force in his own right he wasn’t the same guy we all knew before. At all. In fact his ideas, his policies were often contrary to what we, as a group, in the earlier years, would share. Once, when I asked him about that he came back with some version of we all learn from our experiences, and if a politician wants to get anything done they have to learn how to get along.
I think, upon reflection, that lesson is played out over and over through the rather odd bunch we would call Puna’s alumni of politicians. Most, who have by not learning that lesson, come home after short stints with little to show for their efforts. While the ones that have survived long enough to become influential have done so by morphing into something compatible with the political body more than being a representative of their initial ideals. It’s the nature of the beast.
I wish Tam luck, but hear his words, the ideas you all have shared of his, and hear exuberance and zeal, which is tempered by my memories of those that have taken that ride before him.