Hawaii Republican Assembly

Overnight, it was reported by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s “Breaking News” division that the inactive and financially troubled Hawaii Republican Party (HRP) is finally parting ways with Chairman David Chang.

If early news reports are to be believed, the party’s executive committee has decided to dispense with its much ballyhooed ‘youth movement’ by reaching back into the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s for its new chair. But is a change in leadership too late to salvage what's left of the 2014 campaign season?

Party officers have reportedly decided to pluck from relative obscurity the 84-year-old, twice retired lawmaker who was the first woman in the state legislature to sponsor, support and push for Hawaii to be the first state in the U.S. to legalize abortion (3 years before the Roe v. Wade decision): Pat Saiki. We can only imagine her views on gay marriage, Pono Choices, and overpaid government employees.

With HRP having been held hostage by liberal Republicans for years, GOP platform committee chair Mark Moses seems poised to prevent HRP’s platform committee from adopting any positions on issues and to stay with the overrated, yet underperforming 1-page pamphlet masquerading as a platform known as “LLIFE”. This uselessly neutral existing HRP platform and the party’s unwillingness to educate Hawaii voters on issues is a sore subject which the Hawaii Republican Assembly (HIRA) will vigorously discuss in the days ahead.

It’s likely that the party’s new chair will stay the RINO course. But, in the hope that Ms. Saiki can work day and night between now and the election to turn around the slow-motion train wreck known as the Hawaii Republican Party, we at HIRA have a few thoughts to share (below the tragic chart of doom).

Here’s a quick list of important things for Ms. Saiki to do:

Say a formal goodbye to the supposed ‘youth movement’ that party officers have been ballyhooing for that past year and a half. Whether we are abandoning youth messaging policy because it didn’t work or because it would be embarrassing for Ms. Saiki to keep banging the youth drum, let’s just cancel the party’s lame attempt to exude youth appeal and try instead to be relevant.
Let’s fill the hundreds of vacant leadership positions at the district and precinct level and provide some leadership and resources to these folks in the field. Democrats on the ballot coast to reelection every two years because our party doesn’t even try during the 24 months between each election. The purpose of a party ‘organization’ is to be organized in an attempt to sway the electorate. This can’t be achieved by being motion-less, leader-less, resource-less, and plan-less.
Let’s adopt and promote a unified Republican Party platform which actually addresses the Top 20 most pressing state and local issues. LLIFE is worthless. It is not a 'platform' by any stretch of the imagination. And focusing solely on national issues won’t unseat the entrenched Hawaii Democrat politicians and bureaucrats here in our islands. All politics is local. We need to prove that we know how bad things are and that we know what to do about it.
Let’s stop being so silent about how bad Democrats have been for Hawaii. Nobody in Hawaii realizes this because (unlike our Republican counterparts on the mainland) WE DON’T TELL ANYONE. No signwaving, no doorhangers, no rallies, no canvassing, no phone calls. Nothing for 24 months between elections. Unacceptable if we ever want to be the majority party.
Stop Republican legislators like Beth Fukumoto from spending so much time trying to make Democrats look good and simultaneously making it hard for brave Republican challengers at the county, state and federal level to unseat these dangerous liberal politicians. More on this story to come soon. But anyone paying attention already knows exactly what this means.
Replace the executive committee of HRP which has put up with David Chang’s poor performance (and their own) for all these years. These officers should do the honorable thing and resign. Everyone knows that there is no 'coordinated campaign', no 'coalitions', no 'community service', no 'communications', no 'candidate recruitment and training', and nothing else that party officers were supposed to be doing all this time. Our party is even more ineffective and unorganized than it is invisible. It’s time to choose party officers who know what they are doing, rather than just stuffing the executive committee with RINO consultant Miriam Hellreich’s friends and puppets.

Since everyone in Hawaii has been suffering from 60 years of terrible policies of Democrats, we sincerely hope that Pat Saiki (or whomever will really be running the party day to day) will seize the moment in 2014 to do the right things that put our party on the right track. HIRA’s above suggestions are just a few ways to fix our broken party, so we can fix our broken state. There are more suggestions to come, many of which come from HIRA members and supporters across the state.

Here at HIRA, our fingers are crossed that a change in HRP leadership hasn't come too late to salvage 2014. It's critical that the Hawaii Republican Party work quickly and tirelessly to prevent 2014 from being another wasted biennial opportunity to unseat island Democrats and repeal their harmful agenda at every level of government. Best wishes to HRP's surprise replacement for David Chang, the second consecutive state party chair whose term of office ended early.

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