Isle GOP leader’s refusal to back Trump earns boos

Beth Fukumoto Chang’s husband, David, is a West Point grad and Iraq War combat veteran, but today Fukumoto Chang is the person showing how to take incoming fire and stand tall.

In an amazingly self-destructive outburst over the weekend, Hawaii Republicans held their state convention and used it for the public stoning of one of their few successful candidates, GOP House leader Rep. Fukumoto Chang.

Like former U.S. Rep. Charles Djou and former U.S. Rep. Patricia Saiki, Fukumoto Chang is critical of Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, saying he is dividing and not uniting the GOP and is a sexist, racist, right-wing extremist.

This greatly upsets the vocal, conservative wing of the party that is calling for Fukumoto Chang to leave the GOP. While Fukumoto Chang leads the House GOP, she is criticized and not supported by three of the seven House Republicans.

On Saturday, instead of giving a speech, Fukumoto Chang said she would use her time to take questions from the hostile audience.

“Why don’t you go ahead and join your former minority leader and join the Democratic Party,” one convention member shouted.

“I am not trying to change you, but I am trying to change it, I am trying to make room for people who have different opinions,” Fukumoto Chang said as the loud booing started.

Another GOP delegate shouted: “It feels like you guys are part and parcel with the Democrats. Can you stand behind him (Trump)?”

“You can all boo me. The answer is I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m going to do about president. I don’t like our nominee,” Fukumoto said in the face of an audience growing so hostile, that GOP Chairman Fritz Rohlfing had to call an end to the exchange.

The angry conservatives have been a growing problem for Republicans trying to exist in a liberal, solid Democratic state.

“There is a right-wing cabal that is trying to make a radical turn to the right,” former GOP state Sen. Fred Hemmings predicted eight years ago.

“We cannot afford to polarize ourselves on straight political lines with the wacko right that is saying, ‘It is our way or no way,’” Hemmings warned.

The ability for self-destruction runs through the history of the Hawaii GOP.

Back in 1988, the party was taken over by followers of conservative televangelist Pat Robertson who started to run candidates against liberal or middle-of-the-road GOP women politicians.

Fearing they would not survive a GOP primary dominated by the religious right, legislators Ann Kobayashi, Donna Ikeda and Virginia Isbell left the GOP. All three women became successful and influential Democrats. While Isbell and Ikeda are not in office, Kobayashi is still a powerhouse on the Honolulu City Council.

“Some of those conservative Republicans probably still don’t like me,” Kobaya- shi said in an interview Monday.

No one is liking the Hawaii Robertson supporters because they evaporated, only to be replaced by those now waving a Trump banner. His supporters joined the local GOP this year, helping to raise the presidential preference caucus total to more than 15,000, which Trump won with 43 percent of the vote.

Fukumoto Chang said she is remaining in the GOP for this election, saying that the public booing shows the angry undercurrents within her party. Many Republicans came up afterward to say they also couldn’t support Trump, she said.

It may too late, but Fukumoto Chang, who should get her own “profiles in courage” recognition, said both parties need some time for self-reflection on why both Democrats and Republicans have fielded apparent nominees who are upsetting, not uniting, both parties.

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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.