Hey, so what are you doing next year? Nothing big? No plans? Go run for lieutenant governor! I run with you. You back me up, I back you up. Get some of your friends to run. We all go try. Why not? We’ll make signs in your garage. Barbecue some ribs, eat noodles, talk plans. It’ll be fun. Let’s all run.
Because, you know, everybody else is running for LG next year. Pretty much the only people not running for LG are the ones aiming for Colleen Hanabusa’s seat in Congress. But running for Congress is hard. It takes a lot of money. All that flesh-pressing and speech-making and fund-raising. Plus, you gotta wear a suit. Too much humbug.
LG is cruise. You don’t have to do much, and then you get to blame the gov for not letting you do much. Running for LG is like running for student body vice president.
Make a few color-crayon signs, give a speech that makes people laugh, stay friendly. It doesn’t even hurt much if you don’t win.
Everybody knows that it wasn’t your heart’s fondest desire, your life’s greatest wish. After losing, you can walk around Longs with your head held high.
Most people won’t even remember that you ran. No skin in the game, no harm to your reputation.
It’s the only race you can lose and not become an actual loser.
Don’t even try the lame excuses like, “I have no experience in elected office” or “I haven’t paid my dues in the Legislature yet” or “I’m not even sure what the LG does.” That kind of negative thinking never stopped anyone else from running.
We’ll round up a few more names for the ballot just for fun. People who probably should be running because they would make cool LGs.
Like Frank De Lima. He’d be awesome, especially playing second banana to dry David Ige. His Ige impersonation must be dead-on funny. People would line up to hear Ige speak if De Lima was right behind him mouthing all the words.
Or Carole Kai. Carole Kai is busy, but the LG job doesn’t take too much time.
She’d be so good at the “make an appearance at the event that the governor just couldn’t be bothered with but somebody gotta show face because they made a campaign donation” kind of stuff. She’d be the Aunty-make-it-all-better to Hanabusa’s hard-knuckle style. She would probably enjoy signing all those Change of Name documents. Just like giving autographs.
Or, ooh, somebody call Rene Mansho. Call Rich Miano. Remember when Russ Francis ran for City Council? Get him in on this, too. Too bad June Jones is busy in Canada. Is Kristi Yamaguchi in town?
The ones who are already running include former BOE member Kim Coco Iwamoto; state Sens. Will Espero, Josh Green and Jill Tokuda; and Kauai Mayor Bernard Carvalho. Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa said he was, but this week, he sent out an email saying he was running for something else. There’s still time for him to change back and forth a few more times. There’s still time for you to come up with your campaign slogan.
Deadline to file isn’t until June. C’mon!
Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
