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Maui County
BREAKING NEWS: posted Sept. 25, 8:40 a.m.
Our take on the 2006 Primary Election
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September 21, 2006
By now everyone on the island who gives a damn which human beings sit in Hawai`i's two U.S. Senate seats knows that 81-year-old Daniel Akaka handily beat back U.S. Representative Ed Case
(D, 2nd District)—just as all the big polls were saying he was going to
do. The upstart backbencher's argument that Akaka was too old and
ineffective was no match for the wily incumbent's considerable
financial and union support. As a result, Akaka gets the honor and
privilege of going on to the November election, where he will
presumably slaughter whichever Republican that party drafts to take
over the nomination won by Midweek columnist Jerry Coffee, who actually dropped out of the race months ago following emergency heart surgery. Speaking of troubled Midweek columnists, pro-Iraq War Republican Bob Hogue is the GOP's choice to take on Democratic nominee and former Lt. Governor Mazie Hirono
in Ed Case's old 2nd District Congressional seat. Hogue's got a tough
fight against him, considering that Hirono's progressive, anti-Iraq
views are very popular and there are just way more Democrats than
Republicans in the district. In the big state races, labor favorites Randy Iwase (a retired state Senator) and Malama Solomon
(an OHA trustee) won the nominations for Governor and Lt. Governor,
respectively, utterly smashing hopes that the party would nominate far
more progressive candidates like Waianae Harbor Master William Aila and attorney David Henkin. And given Governor Linda Lingle's
anemic showing at the polls (she won the Republican nomination with a
mere 95.7 percent of the vote) Iwase and Solomon should have an easy
time dispatching her. Of course, the unions weren't impervious to
defeat—Stephen West, a Wailea bartender, had both ILWU and Sierra Club backing, but still lost to longtime Kihei activist Joe Bertram III in
the Democratic 11th District state Representative race. Of course, this
means the Chamber of Commerce-endorsed Bertram will now presumably have
to talk about something other than greenways and bikeways now that he's
taking on Republican Tony Fisher.
In the land of miniscule voter interest—I'm speaking of course of the
Westside—a major upset took place when first term 10th District
Representative Kam Tanaka lost his primary race to political newcomer Angus McKelvey.
It wasn't even close, either, with McKelvey winning 1,359 votes, which
was nearly twice as much as Tanaka's pathetic 689 votes. For
McKelvey—son of Lahaina News founder and Republican activist Joan McKelvey—this was a far better result than the 2004 primary when Tanaka narrowly beat his wife Greta "Mo Bettah" McKelvey for the Democratic nomination. McKelvey now goes on to face Republican physician Ben Azman, who beat former Maui County Republican Party chairwoman Kay Ghean
by a mere 20 votes, 300 to 280, understandably prompting her to seek a
recount. And now we come to the saddest news of the night: James "Kimo" Apana's
disappointing third—might as well be last—place finish in the
10-candidate Maui County Mayor's race. We'll never know if Kimo's
hilarious insistence in The Maui News three
days before the election that the fat Maui Land & Pineapple Co. and
Alexander & Baldwin PAC contributions he was devouring weren't
"corporate money," but it would be fitting if that was the final nail
in the political coffin of the once king of big money politics on Maui.
Instead, county voters now get to look forward to a showdown between
termed-out Upcounty County Councilwoman Charmaine Tavares (8,701 votes) and incumbent Mayor Alan Arakawa (7,689 votes). Termed-out Wailuku Councilman Dain Kane
placed fourth in that race, brilliantly meeting the expectations of
most seasoned observers of Maui politics. Water Board Chairman Mike Victorino—benefiting
from Chamber of Commerce and `Ohana Coalition endorsements—was the big
vote-getter in the race for Kane's old seat, beating second-place
finisher and t-shirt screener Rudy Cabebe
by nearly 15,000 votes. The race between those two in November should
be a real nail-biter. As for the four-person battle over retiring
council member Bob Carroll's East Maui seat, about the only thing that
matters is that longtime political activist/first time candidate Lucienne de Naie
lost. Had she placed in the top two and then gone on to win in
November, her activist tendencies and anti-developer passions could
have gone a long way to changing the way the County Council does
business. Instead, Bill Medeiros—Carroll's handpicked successor—will take on part time farmer Sam Kalalau. As for Akaku TV personality Nick Nikhilananda,
his feeble fourth-place finish arguably stripped votes away from de
Naie—who came within just 304 votes of Kalalau—and now gives him a
statewide campaign record of seven races and seven losses. His greatest
gift to the progressive, slow growth politics he supposedly holds so
dear would be to announce his refusal to ever again seek elected office
on Maui. MTW
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