Lee Cataluna: Infighting is not ‘fighting the good fight’

Hawaii Republicans obviously have an uphill battle in the state. On top of that hill are the smug Democrats, really not paying the Republicans much attention.

What’s not clear is whether the Republicans even know that there is a hill. Consumed by petty, kooky infighting, even when they can field a credible candidate they can’t hold it together long enough to mount a real campaign. The firepower they could use to wound the listless local Democrats is instead turned inward. These guys never settle grudges, they expand them.

And so we have scenes like their finance committee chairman resigning abruptly with a shot at the party’s leadership. At the big general election fundraising dinner last week, part of the “entertainment” was watching the nominee for lieutenant governor fume and grumble about her running mate’s speech.

Hawaii Republicans have an opportunity to define their own identity far away from the toxic rhetoric of Washington. The party is fielding two women of color for the state’s top elected offices, one of whom is an immigrant. That makes Hawaii Republicans unique —maybe even progressive — among the 50 states. Yet they squander this convergence in typical fashion, sucking up to D-list right-wing political celebrities, lapping at the trough of Trumpism and engaging in public displays of dysfunction.

It would have been interesting to hear what LG candidate Marissa Kerns, who was born in the Philippines, had to say about immigration. But she was too busy making a scene at the dinner saying that no one gave her a nametag and complaining about Andria Tupola, her running mate.

When I interviewed Tupola a year ago, she was mulling a run for governor and didn’t have much to say about Trump. She did talk about supporting Mitt Romney in 2012 and how his vision for America shaped her own desire to serve. She talked about empowering people to take care of themselves and their own communities, and the role of leadership being, in part, to bring people together. It’s too bad that her party is not together.

Instead of wasting time explaining away their president’s disruptive behavior as strong leadership, Hawaii Republicans could offer their own prescriptions for what ails Hawaii. There’s so much work to do right here at home. Let’s hear how they’d fix schools. Let’s hear how they’d soothe the tensions between vacation rentals and neighborhoods, and how they’d get tourists who sleep on pullout couches instead of hotel beds to pay their share of taxes. How would they smooth out the roads, harden the bridges and renovate the airport? Let’s hear their plan for helping local businesses.

If Republicans talked about real solutions to real Hawaii problems, they might be taken seriously. They might even win. Hawaii Democrats are not the same well-run political machine of the Dan Inouye and Dan Akaka era. Their organization is a weak and wobbly thing with vicious infighting of its own. Hawaii voters have gone from apathy to resignation. If a strong vision of leadership were to arise from the Republican Party, that could draw local voters like a beacon in the fog.

But not this year. Not when there are nametags to find and presidents to flatter.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.