I still can’t say for sure where my vote will go in next week’s Democratic caucus. Our precinct meets with the rest of District 47 at Kahaluu Elementary School. Hopefully my mind will be made up by then.
Robin Morgan’s feminist defense of Hillary Clinton against outrageous misogynistic attacks speaks to a lot of key issues. I would really like to vote for a woman who is going to be in a position to win, and she may be the one.
Then there was yesterday’s column by AP politics writer Ron Fournier reviewing some of the baggage Clinton carries into this campaign.
I had a role in reporting on some of that baggage involving the Clinton’s relationship with the shady fundraising operation organized by former Hawaii residents Nora and Gene Lum. Gene and I had worked at the Honolulu City Council together in the late 1980s. I was on Neil Abercrombie’s staff, Gene down the hall as staff attorney for Planning Committee chairman Leigh-Wai Doo.
When I joined the Star-Bulletin as an investigative reporter 15 years ago, my first front page story reported on an FBI probe involving Doo’s campaign. I kept digging into that story for a couple of years before finally getting something into print about the amazingly tightly connected little group within the wing Democratic establishment tied to the Clintons. It was quite an eye-opener, and a lesson in politics at that level. The story got clearer as time passed and others followed the trail.
So I get a kind of double vision when viewing Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. On the one hand, she’s obviously a skilled and capable woman and candidate. On the other hand, I’ve reported on some of those alarming friends and the deals they made.
Would I vote for her as the Democratic candidate? Surely. Will I vote to make her the candidate? I don’t know, but I’m leaning elsewhere.
Speaking of the caucuses, a friend saw the weekend announcement that you could sign up online as a member of the Democratic Party in advance of next week’s caucuses, and she did. But when she went back to help other family members register with the party, the online registration didn’t work. I got this note from her yesterday:
Just got off the phone with Malia Schwartz at the Party who said that the online registration is illegal! Per National Headquarters. So, everyone needs to walk in with a form filled up and my online registration was futile.
Maybe we all should know this?
I managed to stop by Kaaawa School yesterday for the school’s annual “Jump Rope for Heart” activities. It’s a fundraiser that produced nearly $1,700 for the American Heart Association, and the kids are challenged by a series of physical activities, including several types of jump rope.
As usual, click for a bunch of kid pics.
8 responses so far ↓
1 Bartman // Feb 14, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Let me respond to this as an individual Party member who is familiar with what is going on. The Party is being overwhelmed by people trying to join in time for the Caucuses, but is trying to do what it can to make the process as accessible as possible.
One step taken was to allow people to join the Party online. After awhile, someone called attention to the fact that this was in conflict with an explicit part of our bylaws which states one has to fill out an official enrollment card, approved by the State Central Committee, in order to become a member.
So we had an internal discussion over how strictly we had to follow the rules. Some, including myself, argued that we should be flexible and questioned how we would be exposing ourselves to any type of risk by allowing folks to join online. The worse I could anticipate would be for some geek to register “Daffy Duck,” “Porky Pig” or “Alfred E. Neuman” as members of the Party. But to commit any sort of election fraud, someone would have to show up at the caucus pretending to be Daffy Duck and demanding to vote. I considered the risk to be remote.
Others pointed to the potential for signing up real people without their permission. And that this might lead to problems in the future if we regarded them as members and attempted to hold them to our rules. It was also pointed out that the real card required a prospective member to sign a pledge to support the candidates and platform of the party, as well as obey the rules. This obligation was absent from the online registration at a time when many non-members are eager to join–perhaps ONLY for the purpose of voting for a particular presidential candidate and without an awareness that they thereby commit themselves to supporting the Party.
Because the online enrollment was clearly in conflict with our rules– even under the most flexible of interpretations, it also MIGHT create a basis for challenging the results of the caucuses.
Therefore, we came up with the best solution we could devise under the circumstances and the pressure of time. Emails have been (or will shortly be) sent to all those who have “joined” online, letting them know that they will have to fill out an official enrollment card “to complete” the process of joining. We are including a pdf form of the card, encouraging them to print it out and fill it out and bring it with them to the caucus meeting. Or, party enrollment forms will be available that evening at the caucus for people to fill out.
People going to the party website: hawaiidemocrats.org, can download the form and bring it with them already filled out, which will help reduce lines at the caucus.
I did hear from some Obama people that this change was an effort by the Clinton campaign at “voter suppression” of Obama supporters. I am personally an Obama supporter, but let me tell you that the “voter suppression” charge is nonsense for (at least) for a couple of reasons. First, the two people most responsible for objecting to the online enrollment are themselves, Obama supporters. Secondly, when the matter was raised to the leaders of the local Clinton campaign, they were strong advocates that we apply the rules as liberally as possible and ALLOW online enrollment.
The Party has apologized for the mix up, but I think the solution we have come up with is the best possible under the circumstances. I hope everyone realizes these elections are being run by unpaid volunteers, putting in long hours to enable thousands of Hawaii residents to join us at the last minute to vote for their candidate. We had originally planned for about double the normal turnout when reserving meeting places and printing up forms. It has become evident that the numbers of people interested is HUGELY beyond our original projections. Many more forms have been printed. Some meeting places have been moved to accommodate larger crowds.
There will be lines. There will be parking problems at the schools. It will require a lot of patience and good humor from both the volunteers and those streaming into the Party to vote for their favored candidate. They WILL be a part of history, but it might take a little bit of work and goodwill.
2 Bartman // Feb 14, 2008 at 3:04 pm
One more point. The Republicans recently held their caucuses in Hawaii and, except perhaps for some Ron Paul supporters, nobody seemed to care. Perhaps a Republican reader can write in and give us the turnout figures so we can compare that interest with the interest in the Democratic caucuses?
To participate in the GOP caucuses, you had to join at least 10 days in advance of your caucus. (The Dems let you join at the last minute–hence, the chaos).
The GOP caucuses did not provide a way for members to vote for their favored presidential candidate, except through the extremely indirect means of voting for your precinct delegates to the state convention, who will then go to the state convention and elect national delegates, who are themselves free to ignore the will of party members and vote for whichever presidential candidate they want.
In contrast, 20 of the Democratic national delegates will go pledged to support the candidates preferred by those voting on Tuesday the 19th. There are 9 “superdelegates” also going who are NOT bound by the vote. These include the state chair, vice-chair, US Senators, Mazie and Neil, two DNC members and a wierd, “add-on” delegate.
Those complaining about that the super-delegates are “undemocratic” should note that ALL of the Republican national delegates from Hawaii are super-delegates.
And, finally, if you are unhappy at how crowded the precinct meetings will be, please note that the entire Windward membership of the Republican Party, from Laie Point down to Makapuu Point was required to drive to the Aikahi Shopping Center Re/Max realty office and meet in one room! The Democrats will be holding caucus meetings at six cafeterias and gymnasiums located up and down the Windward coast.
3 Ruth // Feb 15, 2008 at 10:17 am
Another piece of misinformation floating around is that Republicans have to disengage from that party in order to become a Democrat. The Republican party (593-8180) told me that Republicans who want to change parties, have only to sign the Democratic enrollment card..
4 Ruth // Feb 15, 2008 at 10:50 am
Anyone who thinks that Senator Clinton is more experienced and will, therefore, be a better problem-solving president, should compare the two campaigns:
Senator Obama has gone from 0 to 60 in 18 months, building an inclusive grass roots organization of hundreds of thousands of people who fund his campaign every quarter with small donations to swell his campaign chest to a stable 100 million dollars.
His campaign has also been stable in terms of people: No bickering in the Obama Family, no firings and hirings.
The Obama campaign has reached out to the disengaged and disenfranchised, to grow the vote, to provide something to believe in, a carrot to the future.
5 Dennis // Feb 15, 2008 at 2:06 pm
sooner or later Obama is going to have to actually answer some tough questions instead of just a great speech saying nothing, at which he is great, I’m afraid we are looking at a bush with class
6 Ruth // Feb 16, 2008 at 9:26 am
Dear Dennis,
I’m not sure I trust anyone who can tell me exactly what they will be doing a year from now. But let’s compare the methods of the two candidates as they approach, for example, the health care issue:
Senator Clinton says she will mandate all Americans to buy health insurance. By doing that, she has no leverage to negotiate health insurance costs, so we just pay what the insurance companies tell us to pay.
Senator Obama, on the other hand, says he will go first to the the healthcare insurers/pharmaceutical companies and he will say, “I’ve got three hundred million people here who might be interested in your product, what kind of deal can you give us?”
He calls this approach “Truth to Power” and it means that he will go to the source of any problem we have in America and he will negotiate for us with the same consistency whether the problem is with a corporation, industry or another nation.
He has already talked to the automobile industry about cutting fuel emissions and has gotten nuclear power plants to report leaks that the law did not require them to report.
His “cap and trade” system places a cap on emissions, and the industries who work to lower their emissions, are allowed to sell their emission points to those industries that haven’t lowered theirs. That way, it’s better business to lower emissions.
Instead of going directly to mandates, Senator Obama says, “let’s see if we can’t make this more affordable, more attractive to the people of America. And he does it all with “carrots and sticks.”
7 Dennis // Feb 16, 2008 at 11:53 am
sounds good Ruth–I dought he can pull it off–lot of difference between making a good speech to a eager public and making it happen with congress and big biz–what he is saying has been tried and tried and stopped and stopped–we have had eight years of my way or the highway–really don’t want a new president trying the same thing again
8 Bartman // Feb 17, 2008 at 3:41 pm
RUTH WROTE:
“Another piece of misinformation floating around is that Republicans have to disengage from that party in order to become a Democrat. The Republican party (593-8180) told me that Republicans who want to change parties, have only to sign the Democratic enrollment card..”
Ruth,
I agree with some of your other comments, but this is inaccurate.
Under Dem Party rules, you cannot be a member of both parties at the same time. Signing a Dem Party card will make you a Democrat, but it does NOT remove you from the party roll of the GOP. That requires an extra step of notifying the Republicans that you are resigning from them.
The person in the GP office who provided that answer may have had a misunderstanding, based upon how party affiliation is handled in many other states, like California, where you join a party by indicating that on your voter registration form.
In Hawaii, party affiliation is a private matter. There is no central state or county governmental registry of affiliation. The Democrats do not have access to the Republican list and vice-versa.
When people were coming to the Democratic office seeking to join the party, if they said they were Republicans, one staffer handled it by calling the GOP headquarters and saying, “I have a person here who wants to resign from the Republican Party,” and handing the phone to the person to complete the process. The Republicans were getting annoyed that they were losing some many members to Obama that they stopped answering the phone.
If you think about it, why would the Republican Party have ANY incentive to remove these people from their membership list? Why should they care?
Once the caucuses are over, the Dems will have to contact the new members and advise them of the requirement. Hopefully, many of them will have permanently left the GOP, but certainly some are only “crossing over” because Obama is so attractive compared to McCain or Huckabee. Will they remain Democrats? I dunno.
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