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Maui County
Case Closed
Our take on the 2006 Primary Election
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September 28, 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 right-wing state Representative Cynthia Thielen (R, Kailua), drafted by the Republican Party Central Committee to take over the nomination won by Midweek columnist Jerry Coffee,
who dropped out of the race months ago following emergency heart
surgery(and they say the Democrats run a political machine!). 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 liberal 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, dashing hopes that the party would nominate far more
progressive candidates like Waianae Harbor Master William Aila and attorney David Henkin. 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 and former Maui Planning Commissioner Joe Bertram III
in the Democratic 11th District state Representative race. Of course,
this means 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 minimal 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 faces Republican physician Ben Azman, who beat former Maui County Republican Party chairwoman Kay Ghean by a mere 20 votes, 300 to 280, nearly prompting her to ask for 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 did in the former king of big money politics
on Maui. Though even I can't bring myself to think that we won't see
Apana again. In any case, county voters now get a showdown between
termed-out Upcounty County Councilwoman Charmaine Tavares (8,701 votes) and incumbent Mayor Alan Arakawa
(7,689 votes). They're both promising a clean race, but hopefully
that's just early election hype. 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 changed 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, 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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