Gov-hopeful Tupola tries to square GOP ideals here

This is becoming the year of the vaporous political announcement.

First, U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa announced she was running for governor, then launched a mostly silent campaign that has been raising money and gathering people, who are evidently talking quietly among themselves.

In comparison, incumbent Democratic Gov. David Ige is off running a basic campaign used by most incumbents: finding people to praise his record, launch Facebook and other social media efforts, and make an attempt to reach out to the news media.

Now comes state Rep. Andria Tupola, the new House minority leader, who is running for governor.

Tupola, 37, an articulate former West Oahu and Leeward Community College professor of music, has been mentioned several times as thinking about running for governor.

When GOP Rep. Bob McDermott announced that he was halting his embryonic gubernatorial campaign, he said Tupola was likely to run — and the Waianae, two-term House member confirmed, yes, she was thinking about it.

But the closest thing to a formal announcement was the state Campaign Spending Commission notice that Tupola was holding a fundraiser.

According to commission records, Ige has held 13, Hanabusa has held two, including one last month in San Francisco hosted by Mayor Ed Lee, who died on Dec. 12. And Tupola has held four.

“Yes, I am running for governor,” Tupola said in an interview last week while waiting to board a plane for a campaign swing to Molokai.

If most Republicans in Hawaii tend to get mired in the political culture wars of same-sex marriage and abortion, Tupola, a strong Mormon with a relatively low American Conservative Union ranking of 39 percent, is more likely to be out organizing community self-help projects than proselytizing.

Tupola said she is running because she thinks a lot of the state government is not working well, and while she can nag bureaucrats to fix the streets or unjam school bottlenecks, one really has to be in charge to get anything done.

“I can call the DOE and tell them this project is behind, or the DOT to say this is not being taken care of or this project is behind, or this business hasn’t gotten a permit for five years. But, it is all systemic of things wrong at the operations level,” Tupola said.

Spending 18 months living and working in Venezuela as a Christian missionary showed her a different side of government. The socialist government of Hugo Chavez, she said, may have addressed poverty but destroyed Venezuelans’ “desire to work.”

Tupola’s ideas of fitting GOP ideas into a decidedly Democratic Hawaii are to stress financial conservatism, support local business, support freedom of religion and support for the military.

The biggest national political stumbling block for a Hawaii Republican is what to say about President Donald Trump, who had his biggest popular vote loss in Hawaii and who continues to set new record lows as the least popular president in American history.

“I did support Donald Trump because I felt we needed a new direction for our country,” she said, adding that America is at a crossroad looking for new definitions and new leadership.

Still, trying to positively fit Hawaii voters into a matrix that favorably explains Trump’s slash-and-burn political style is more than just a difficult task; it may be impossible.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.