Fasi Shocker, Political Fatalities
Wednesday - August 02, 2006
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Del.icio.usIt was a shock seeing former Marine captain and mayor Frank Fasi last Thursday, frail-voiced, walking with a cane, little energy. No sharp repartee left.
The man who’d drop anywhere on a dare and do 20 push-ups. The ageless, in-your-face politician you either loved or despised. The man we simply got tired of.
And this was classic Harry Kim. He made his decision not to run for governor at 4 a.m. “I did wake my wife to tell her first, and then called my sons and brothers and sisters shortly thereafter to inform them,” Kim says.
Good decision, Harry. You don’t have the clout, the money or the health for a statewide campaign, and why desert people who elected you to run the Big Island through 2008?
Kim’s a hard guy to figure out. He ran as a Republican, but says “I never was a Republican.”
He leaves Linda Lingle at least a 60-40 winner this year.
I see many battlefield fatalities from our Sept. 23 primary election for federal office, and the November general.
* Sen. Bob Hogue - Not a chance a GOP’er can capture that 2nd District Congress seat.
* Rep. Brian Schatz - Too many Democrat heavier-hitters in that primary. Hogue and Schatz lose their Legislature seats.
* Democratic Congress candidate Joe Zuiker - Back to lawyering labor injuries.
* Republican Congress candidate Mark Terry - Back to selling real estate.
* GOP Congress candidate Noah Hough, who says he’s “a male Virgo with interests in yoga, meditation, Peru and Latin America,” goes back into space.
* MidWeek columnist Jerry Coffee is a shoo-in by name recognition next month in a no-other-names GOP primary for U.S. Senate. But he’s running in a Democrat state when an AP poll says Americans will vote 51-40 for Democrats this year. He never held public office, and it’s difficult, at best, to want to take your baby steps in the most exclusive and powerful law-making body on the planet. KIA in the general.
* Rep. Ed Case. Running for a U.S. Senate seat as a Democrat but cozy with the national Republicans. Bolted the Hawaii delegation to vote yes on the Patriot Act and to give the president new line-item veto powers.
His primary is an uphill, frontal assault against the well-entrenched forces of Sen. Dan Akaka. Fredericksburg, 1862.
He admits he sometimes finds his party and its leaders too extreme, but insists he’s only a moderate Democrat, not a liberal Republican.
In February of 2005, Case told Star-Bulletin reporter Richard Borreca “I have filed papers with the Federal Campaign Commission for my House seat,” and added he would only run for the U.S. Senate “if there was an opening.”
Case said: “Right now, there is not.” There still was not when he decided he’d run.
That “wait your turn” issue aside, it is Case’s past coziness on Iraq that can tip the election his way or Akaka’s - depending on how Hawaii voters feel about the war, George, Dick, Condi & Co. three weeks from now.
Some Republicans may take Democratic ballots to vote for Case, but doing that excludes them from voting in the HogueQuentin Kawananakoa race.
This week as I read the tea leaves, I see Akaka by 52-48 or better.
* William Aila Jr., Democrat, governor. The Unknown Soldier.
* Randy Iwase, Democrat, governor. Dead on arrival at the front lines.
Do hold candidates’feet to the fire about their Middle East views - especially federal candidates.
Watch the money trails. If your candidate’s is mainly from the big PACs, switch to somebody with substantial individual contributions. Watch the news stories on this.
Resist your urge to vote by ethnicity or name recognition.
I usually don’t recommend a strictly by-party vote, but this year is an up or down on Bush/GOP and their policies, and there’s no way to make that anything but what it is.
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