Hawaii Democrats require new faces

Long overdue. The party leadership ranks are populated with dinosaurs who are more interested in personal status that the good of the organization. The focus on dogma and not on strategic growth and financial independence holds it hostage to the very legislators they constantly assail. Perhaps term limits on SCC and Executive Leadership might help. Time to mentor and move on

Abercrombie for leader!

I'll drink to that!

Ron Menor

Kalli wrote:

Why doesn't Governor Lingle just jump parties and become a democrat. She acts like one.

As a Democrat, I would prefer the party not follow the example of Governor Lingle. What has she accomplished that has significantly increased the quality of life of the people of our State? I would hope the Democrats would look for inspiration from those who truly provided the stewardship that looked to the interest of all of the people rather than run a ship based solely of public relations value.

The Star Bulletin editors should really think through what they pen for public consumption rather than rely on slogans to make their points.

"jennifer" either you don't follow politics in Hawaii or your very naive!
The Democrats here in Hawaii are anything but democratic. They run a closed shop dictatorship under the leadership of the "Godfather" Dan Inouye.
They support everything from Las Vegas casino's to Matson's high sea monopoly, while ensuring the power of their party.
This year they tried to strip "The Peoples Governor" Linda Lingle of emergency governing and now are ignoring the electorate and attempting to raise retirement age of judges to 80 in order to preserve their lawyers remain on the bench.
Business legislation still remains worse in the country and we are dubbed "The Peoples Republic of Hawaii".
Look farther from Lingle, she has constantly governed but the power in the union controlled Democrat Legislature is extremly hard to overcome, what would be worse would be another Ariyoshi again.

Democratic not Democrat wrote:

"jennifer" either you don't follow politics in Hawaii or your very naive!
The Democrats here in Hawaii are anything but democratic. They run a closed shop dictatorship under the leadership of the "Godfather" Dan Inouye.
They support everything from Las Vegas casino's to Matson's high sea monopoly, while ensuring the power of their party.
This year they tried to strip "The Peoples Governor" Linda Lingle of emergency governing and now are ignoring the electorate and attempting to raise retirement age of judges to 80 in order to preserve their lawyers remain on the bench.
Business legislation still remains worse in the country and we are dubbed "The Peoples Republic of Hawaii".
Look farther from Lingle, she has constantly governed but the power in the union controlled Democrat Legislature is extremly hard to overcome, what would be worse would be another Ariyoshi again.

Now,now,now, Lenny. Don't get so huffy. It's merely a view I have held since the Governor occupied the fifth floor a year into her first term. You contributed greatly to her failure of what might have been a great period of transformation in Hawaii politics. As a person who was once hopeful when she was elected, I have become very disillusioned and waiting anxiously for a change. 2010 cannot come soon enough.

Since the Republicans eliminated the two party system with their ill-advised lawsuit to end multi-member districts, the Democrats have demonstrated what happens when you reduce the gene pool. As I have said previously, they have turned Hawaii State Government into a ukulele playing version of the bakwoods kid in Deliverance. The voices that count to the Democrats only come from union leaders, social workers and plaintiffs' attorneys. Business leaders, economists, scientists have no influnce. No matter who the Democrats select our State will still be watching the rest of the world go by and leave us behind, just as if we were competing in the Indy 500 with the Flint-mobile.

Having too few oposition legislators will not bring change to our old boy's government.

The program that is winning Obama over Clinton is his slate for change.

Your disillusionment is not created by our Governor, but the inability to get voters out, other than union members, to reinstall a two party system here in Hawaii.

I am sure Lingle is as disillusioned as you. Supporting her to bring change with a two party system is tantamount to Obama bringing change in Washington.

I support Obama for Washington but cannot support these "old boys" here in Hawaii.

disdis·il·lu·sion·ed - adjective
Seeing power seekers like Abercrombie re-elected time and time again.

Kalli wrote:

Why doesn't Governor Lingle just jump parties and become a democrat. She acts like one.

I'm scared of Obama..Obama wants to reduce defense spending & get rid of our nukes...it's waaaaay too premature to do that....

Why? after seeing some of these....

http://www.youtube.com/results...

...and these....

http://www.youtube.com/results...

...and these too....

http://www.youtube.com/results...

...definitely can't forget these....

http://www.youtube.com/results...

....and this (this is all we have? we need a hell of a lot more missile defense, not less!)....

http://www.mda.mil/mdalink/html/mdalink.html

...I'm not so sure about this (SCARY!!!)....

http://www.youtube.com/watch...

Obama wants a smart military ready to fight modern wars. Most of our defense budget is just make-work for large defense contractors and is geered toward a huge land war in China. We need to deeply slash the defense budget. America is in free fall decline economically. We will not be a military power for long.

I wonder what kind of state...what kind of country...we might have if we got around this democrat/republican trash??

What a superpower we would be!

Ain't gonna happen...too many want their piece of the pie.

I used to be active in the Democratic Party. With the exception of Senator Inouye who is power without the party, I was disappointed with the same old business in the Party. Bottom line is the Party is interested in the status quo and change is difficult. People are reluctant to share power let alone change. The same want to keep the power all to themselves and don't share.

Democratic not Democrat wrote:

"jennifer" either you don't follow politics in Hawaii or your very naive!
The Democrats here in Hawaii are anything but democratic. They run a closed shop dictatorship under the leadership of the "Godfather" Dan Inouye.
They support everything from Las Vegas casino's to Matson's high sea monopoly, while ensuring the power of their party.
This year they tried to strip "The Peoples Governor" Linda Lingle of emergency governing and now are ignoring the electorate and attempting to raise retirement age of judges to 80 in order to preserve their lawyers remain on the bench.
Business legislation still remains worse in the country and we are dubbed "The Peoples Republic of Hawaii".
Look farther from Lingle, she has constantly governed but the power in the union controlled Democrat Legislature is extremly hard to overcome, what would be worse would be another Ariyoshi again.

Well said, except for the part about Governor Ariyoshi. I'd rather have him back than another of our former governors. Didn't the state have a surplus at the end of his final term?

Great article! People must really research the facts when selecting a Party Chair. Otherwise, one might think that voting younger is voting better.

Annelle Amaral is the one who has had the courage to stand up to Senator Inouye.

In the recent "closed primary" issue at the State Central Committee, Annelle Amaral stood up to Senator Inouye and joined others to push for the Party's lawsuit to move forward. Brian Schatz folded under the pressure and sided with Senator Inouye that "now is not the time" ... the theme used by Senator Inouye and the other elected for the last 14 years!

For over 50 years the democrats have had the "power" to make life better for us. Sadly our brothers and sisters are living on the beach or in their cars with their children no less. Yet the democrats do nothing to improve our quality of life except increases taxes every session. Wake up and vote them out. It can't get worse than what is! Nuff said.

It just continues....and it will for the next 40 years. The Republican Party in Hawaii is dead, and the old-boy network/Democrat party will rule for the next couple of generations. Some of the names changes, but nothing else.

Republican & Democrat nowadays is all the same, what we need for hawaii is a strong independant leader interested in moving the state forward, and not just to maintain power.

What's wrong with the old boy network? Quiet and effective (Ariyoshi) was better then Mutt and Jeff (Lingle).

No matter how you folks feel about Lingle, Ben Cayetano was a worse governor and he was a democrat. If anybody caused the demise of the democratic party in Hawaii it was the former Governor Ben Cayetano. Lingle was there at the right time when everyone was clamoring for change.

Not so sure about Benny! Uncle John Waihee sort of screwed the system up with his tense relationship with Benny. Waihee was the second biggest fraud after Lingle!

Uncle Johnny wrote:

Not so sure about Benny! Uncle John Waihee sort of screwed the system up with his tense relationship with Benny. Waihee was the second biggest fraud after Lingle!

I agree. Waihee was a loser too but Cayetano was such an arrogant a-hole.