i L i n d . n e t

We were driving home yesterday afternoon listening to the KHON news broadcast on KSSK am as Joe Moore read a story about a Hawaii-bound flight turning back to Los Angeles as the result of smoke caused by a malfunctioning oven.

There may have been visuals to fill in the blanks, but the story Moore read didn’t name the airline involved in the incident. That seemed a bit of an omission to me. Doesn’t this seem like key information viewers would find of interest?

By the way, AP identified the flight as ATA Airlines Flight 4755, and most other reports found in a Google search properly identified the airline involved.

I’m trying to figure out recent news about a push by one faction of the Democratic Party for a “closed” primary.

The Advertiser reported last week:

Democrats have been the dominant political party in the Islands since the 1950s, but only about 20,000 of the state’s more than 662,000 registered voters belong to the party.

Voters can join by simply filling out a membership card, but most do not. Last year, for example, more than 236,000 voters participated in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate between U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka and then-U.S. Rep. Ed Case.

The state’s open primary system allows voters to choose which party’s ballot to pull on election day. A closed primary would require voters to declare their party affiliation before the election to be eligible to vote for a party’s candidates.

My memory isn’t perfect, but I don’t think voters had to sign up as members of either party in order to vote in the primary back when Hawaii had a closed primary system.

As I recall, you indicated a “party preference” when registering rather than declaring party membership. The system restricted last-minute tactical shifts in primary voting rather than closing the primary to people who weren’t party members. In the years following the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, I recall that we voted but weren’t too keen on becoming party members, although we did make the move years later.

If today’s Dems are talking about returning to a system such as Hawaii had a three decades ago, then talk about a “members only” primary would seem to be a red herring. And if they are really looking at a party membership requirement, then perhaps alternatives need to be considered.

If you recall Hawaii’s closed primary differently, then please feel free to correct my recollection.

Gov. Lingle’s proposed supplemental budget is available for browsing, for those who want more detail than news reports are able to give. Copies on compact disks have also been distributed at the capitol.

Here’s another view towards Diamond Head, this time taken from Round Top Drive a year before Hawaii statehood.

Most of the University of Hawaii Manoa campus is visible in the foreground, center-left, before most of the construction that now defines the campus.

Just click for a larger version of the photo.