District 21/22/23 Newsletter (Diamond Head to Kakaako, Moiliili to Pawaa)

The 2006 election is about the governor’s race -- but it also isn’t. Not only is it the first time ever that a Republican governor is up for re-election, but every indication is that it’s a “no-contest” from every angle one can dissect it -- with a well-known, obvious favorite against opposition even their own party admits is overmatched and out of its league. It would be the same with anyone -- because it’s just Linda Lingle’s time -- like Tyrannosaurus Rex once ruled the earth. That’s just a fact, and not an opinion, preference, bias.

Sometimes, one just has to accept those facts --and change those things that can be changed -- rather than thinking that one can stand fast and hold one’s ground against a tsunami. So that is the great advantage the Republicans are working hopefully with -- rather than against. While the Democrat opposition is obvious, less so is it that the Lingle campaign can also be competing against fellow Republicans for scarce resources -- and may inadvertently be sucking up all the oxygen in the room.

As the media covers the so-called governor’s race, it is less likely that they’ll be giving more coverage to other races more deserving of their time and interest -- because the governor’s campaign releases may get published, while others deserving of attention will be ignored. It’s unfair but that is the reality one has to work with. And while one can complain loud and long about those injustices, one is better served devising strategies that acknowledge those realities and create new ones to their own advantage -- and in the case of the media, creating one’s own, and linking all one’s efforts into a critical mass and momentum.

Specifically, I think every Republican candidate has to link their own campaign to the governor’s in some complementary and mutually advantageous way. With the fall of the influence of mass media, it’s not easy to draw a crowd or a following anymore, and one of the few who does, is the governor. So I would think that those running for statewide office particularly, would be at those same venues -- if conspicuous for no other reason than for their ubiquitous nametags.

It’s amazing the number of people who think that “everybody” knows who they are, when often, these people don’t even know who they themselves are. Running for office, like everything else we do in life, is one way of learning who it is we actually are. A large part of it is defining, redefining and refining who we are -- in the campaign messages, until something sticks. It may be a witty campaign slogan, biographical piece, a ditty one can’t get out of their mind, etc. I know the Party sums it up in one word, “Hard work,” but it also has to be the “right effort,” as the Buddhists of antiquity were the first to point out and codify.

In Hawaii, we often forget that condition, and assume that “any” hard work pays off -- with the “desired” result -- rather than just “any” result. Regardless of what they are doing, I think everyone works as hard as everybody else; I think the real and decisive difference is how smart and efficiently they work -- rather than being the genetic exceptions, who the more energy they put out, the more energy they seem to have. With most others, energy is a limited resource -- as are all the others.

Because our greatest resources here in Hawaii have been free -- the sun, sea, air, nature, diversity -- we have not developed the greatest skills at valuing them properly and efficiently, just as we think the more federal monies we waste, there is no end to the largesse that our congress people can secure -- even to the disastrous effects both environmentally and psychologically. It breeds a kind of irresponsible and unaccountable personalities and supportive culture that eventually explodes onto our consciousness with predictable, disturbing regularity.

The underlying intellectual and cultural infrastructure is that nothing is related to anything else; “stuff” just happens. “Liberal” studies foster the notion that randomness is the underlying explanation for everything. If one simply goes through the motions long enough, mechanically, mindlessly, a miracle may happen. Miracles happen because one systematically makes them more likely to happen.

That is the reason for laws and government, and before that, more informal meetings of those who assemble to discuss these possibilities among themselves. Of course, many people’s ideas of what such occasions are about is to tell everybody their information -- without the realization that it might be even more productive, as opportunities to take in new information. And so these forums have often become quite contentious and unproductive -- rather than conducive to the free exchange of information, without a particular agenda.

Hopefully and confidently, you think that if you get a few intelligent people together, they can figure out what needs to be talked about -- without having to overly ritualize the discussion by Roberts Rules of Order. Everybody has their unique concerns and perspectives that one doesn’t learn about until one has such direct exchanges with others -- unlike the old mass media paradigm in which we trusted the media to report faithfully what was going on. That used to be the best way we had at finding these things out.

But with new technologies and new media, we evolve to an even higher level of information availability and reliability not controlled by the “media” itself. That makes the humble meeting of actual people once again the king of all forums -- like our monthly meeting this Wednesday, July 26, 6pm at the Hawaii Republican Headquarters.