Posted on 11/24/2010 2:25:21 PM PST by LeoWindhorse
"He has no regrets over his campaign but is analyzing why his loss was so large, he says "
Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona said yesterday that he will decide after the 2012 elections whether to run for governor again in 2014.
The Republican, who lost to Gov.-elect Neil Abercrombie by 17 percentage points earlier this month, said he would not consider any other political office. He plans to take a private-sector job within the next few weeks.
"I have no intention, no ambition, no desire to run for any other office, whether it be Congress, Senate, state House seats or whatever it may be. That's out of the question," Aiona said. "I only have one office in mind, and that's the gubernatorial seat in 2014."
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Maybe the state party hadn’t lay down and died, he might’ve had a chance.
lay=laid
I think your “lack luster milk toast” comment was more correct than your comment on the appeal to the faith community. The GOP candidate just didn’t have what it takes to beat even the grossest, lefty troll, Abercrombie. Aiona would have been a great Governor but he was a junk contender for the office.
I really do think it’s time to cut Hawaii loose as a state. Its two senile Marxist Senators alone kept the GOP from maintaining their majority from 2007-09, and with the ascension of a senile Stalinist Haole Hippie to the Governorship after a useless RINO tenure by Lingle, the tossing of a competent moderate GOP Congressman (not to mention now having the smallest percentage of GOP legislators of any state) are just more reasons to let them go their own way. Beautiful state, ugly and destructive politics holding the rest of the country hostage.
Some state GOPs are just worthless.
You’re probably right. The DemocRAT Machine which took over the state in 1962 is still firmly in control. The few Republicans who were able to win Federal office (Senator Hiram Fong, Congresswoman Patricia Saiki) had avoided direct conflict with the machine.
I don’t think that we should kick out any state, but if HI wants to leave to become a socialist republic, I won’t share any tears. I would support having Guam become part of the state of HI, since (i) its U.S. citizens deserve voting representation, too, and (ii) with a population below 200,000 (and, as Congressman Johnson of GA-04 sagely warned, the island could tip over and sink into the sea if too many people move to its north end : ) it’s too small for statehood. A “Big Hawaii” that includes Guam (and eventually the Northern Marianas and all of those small, sparsely inhabited Pacific islands administered by the Navy, Air Force or federal agencies; Samoans aren’t U.S. citizens so I don’t know about American Samoa) would still have only four electoral votes, but both the HI-01 (which would have to expand to take in all of Oahu) and the HI-02 (which would lose most of its remaining Oahu precincts when it adds the new islands) would become more Republican. Oahu gave President Bush 48% in 2004 while the HI-01 gave him 47%, so adding more of Oahu to the CD would have helped Djou (albeit not by enough), while Guam’s symbolic presidential ballot gave President Bush a large majority in 2004 (and participation among its large military population would surely rise if they could vote for president and for voting members of Congress, which would increase the GOP margin), so the HI-02 would become less Democrat and increase the likelihood of an upset win by a Republican.
I’d keep Guam. They just elected a brand-new GOP Governor, Eddie Calvo (and this was the first time since they instituted the popular vote for Governor that one Republican succeeded another - although no Democrat has succeeded another, either, which is why Guam is a fairly competitive territory). Unfortunately, the GOP didn’t run an opponent to the elderly Madeleine Bordallo. I’m not sure they or the NMI would want to commute to Honolulu to vote in a “greater Hawaiian” state. The NMI was a disappointment so far, when they officially got a territorial Delegate for the ‘08 elections, an Independent won over the Republican who had been the non-formal member, and he switched to the Democrats and was reelected. I had favored NMI’s elevation in the ‘90s expecting they’d consistently elect Republicans to the post (as they did with the non-formal member). The rise of the new Covenant Party there has sapped the strength of the GOP.
I admit that I haven’t closely watched the non-state territories. Hawaii was a huge dissapointment. Given who the Governor is, there is a possibility that he and the legislature will overreach like Obama-Pelosi-Reid did, creating a backlash against their party there. We should keep an eye out for that.
It makes little sense to bestow statehood on tropic island nations out in the middle of the ocean that have little or nothing in common with in the mainland U.S. Sure, they might enjoy being territories because they get a good deal from using our currency and legal protections, but that doesn't mean they have anything in common culturally with the United States. If the U.S. really wanted to expand its boundries, it would make more sense to buy some land that shares a border and a shared history with the U.S. like New Bruswick or Victoria Island. And in the case of Hawaii, if you look at history, we weren't even legally supposed to be there in the first place. That was nothing short of an unlawful coop and overthrow of the Hawaii monarchy, the initial report during the McKinley adminstration even admitted as much until they were pressured to look the other way.
I guess the Hawaii royals enjoyed somewhat of a kinship with the GOP and the island was Republican-friendly during the territorial day. Of course, Quentin KawÄnanakoa, the current heir-apparent to the Hawaii throne (if it was ever restored), has been an unsuccessful GOP candidate for elected office on numerous occasions. But the average voter in Hawaii certainly doesn't have any ties to the native Hawaii rulers (seems most of the population is japanese ancestry and white liberals), and it tends to be an overwhelmingly RAT electorate. Lingle was just Arnold in a dress, and I think she poisoned the well for Lt. Governor Aiona's chances. I'm not surprised we lost our one-term GOP congressman from Hawaii, freepers seem to forget that he won in a fluke because two RAT candidates split the vote and he got in with 1/3rd of the votes cast. It wasn't any kind of mandate for Republicans and once the Hawaii RATs had a single candidate to rally around, they dumped him. Hawaii of course prides itself on Obama, I say give them the Hussein presidential library so it will be as far away from the mainland U.S. as possible.
I agree you could make a good case that some of our other island territories, like Guam, may not be as hopelessly wedded to the liberal cause. But statehood is still a bad choice to give to these pacific island territories. The Prime Minister of Israel is probably more Americanized than many of these places under American rule.
When statehood for AK and HI was being debated in the 1950s, most people assumed that AK would vote Democrat and HI would vote Republican. HI came very close to voting for Nixon in its first presidential election just 15 months after statehood, voting for Kennedy by less than 0.5%, but has for the most part voted Democrat since then (except for the 1972 and 1984 Nixon and Reagan 49-state landslides, and a few congressional and gubernatorial elections). Yes, it is a liberal state, with its pro-military electorate being its only saving grace politically.
But to say that there is less cultural affinity between Hawaiians and their fellow citizens in the Mainland than there is between Canadians in Vancouver Island (Victoria is a city on the island) or New Brunswick and Americans on the Mainland is ridiculous. Maybe residents of Vancouver Island readmSeattle newspapers, but they didn’t serve side-by-side with Americans from every state and territory in every war from WWI to the present day as has been themcase for U.S. citizens from Hawaii and Puerto Rico; in fact, Hawaiians and Puerto Ricans have served and died in our wars disproportionately to the islands’ populations.
As for how Puerto Rico would vote were it to be admitted to the Union, it is by no means clear. Voters in PR are for the most part socially conservative (pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-religion, pro-military), but economically populist (protectionist, generous with government aid), and seem to tolerate a greater amount of corruption than in most places. The most similar electorate to that of PR is that of Louisiana, which voted for Democrats for president in 1976, 1992 and 1996 and for Republicans in 1972, 1980, 1984, 1988, 2000 and 2004; had PR been a state during those years, it likely would have voted the same as LA, except that maybe Ford would have carried PR in 1976 and Gore carried it in 2000. The fact that votets of Puerto Rican descent in NYC, Chicago, NJ and CT vote (mostly descended from poor, rural Puerto Ricans who moved up North during the Great Depression and into the early 50s) vote overwhelmingly Democrat says very little about the electorate in PR; a better proxy are the mostly lower-middle-class Puerto Ricans who have moved to Central Florida from the 1990s to today and voted for Gore in 2000, Jeb Bush in 2002, President Bush in 2004, Crist in 2006, Obama in 2008, and (by all indications) Marco Rubio in 2010.
PR has 4 million U.S. citizens and 2 million voters (it has very high voter participation), and virtually all of those votes are up for grabs because for decades they have been voting for candidates of local parties without national party labels. Still, the governor of PR, Luis Fortuño, is a socially conservative, pro-business, pro-statehood Republican (although he does support the sections of Obamacare that send money to PR to pay for the local healthcare program), and a majority of state senators (including Senate president Thomas Rivera Schatz), a majority of state representatives (including Speaker Jenniffer Gonzalez) and the mayors of 6 of the 8 biggest cities (including San Juan Mayor Jorge Santini) are pro-statehood Republicans. If PR was a state, it is silly to assume that it would send an all-Democrat delegation to Congress or that it would provide 8 safe electoral votes for the Democrats; more likely PR will be a swing state like Louisiana and send a mix of conservative Republicans and socially conservative Democrats to Congress.
I have to tell you I wish I were in Hawaii right now, it is freezing outside!!!
Although, that would involve flying which I am boycotting till Big Sis gets thrown out.
No, YOUR premise that some Polynesian island hundreds of miles away has more in common with the U.S. culturally than a nation that lives by side-by-side with them for two centuries is ridiculous. Hawaii had absolutely nothing in common with the United States until U.S. rule was forced on them in the 1880s. Canada, on the other hand, is basically America lite, and copies all kinds of unique features of the United States right down to our thanksgiving holiday.
Look at the demographics. Both the U.S. and Canada are 70-80% Christian. What's the Christian population of Hawaii? 28%. In the U.S., asians are 5% of the population and in Canada they're 11% (and far less if you don't categorize people with east India ancestry as "asian"). In Hawaii, they're 2/3rds of the state's population. The climate and fauna are completely different. The economic output is completely different (though obviously they've had the U.S. system forced on them since territorian status), the education system is completely different (Hawaii has the U.S.' only school system that is unified statewide, Hawaii educates more students in independent institutions of secondary education than any other state in the United States, etc.), and of course the culture is completely different than the U.S. mainland, based on the Polynesian triangle of the south and central Pacific Ocean, something virtually unknown in the mainland U.S., even with our vast immigrant population. (nations that would have a shared cultural background with Hawaii would include places like New Zealand, Easter Island, Tonga, the Cook Islands,etc. Even our large population of Filipinos who grew up in the Philipines would have little in common with Hawaiians) Pacific-Islanders are 0.3% of the US population.
In short, you'd be as justified in making Iraq a U.S. state on the basis it was under U.S. millitary rule from 2003-2004. It has as much in common culturally with the mainland U.S. as Hawaii does.
>> As for how Puerto Rico would vote were it to be admitted to the Union, it is by no means clear. Voters in PR are for the most part socially conservative (pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-religion, pro-military), but economically populist (protectionist, generous with government aid), and seem to tolerate a greater amount of corruption than in most places. <<
Economic issues trump social issues for most voters. I bet you'd find most of their RAT officials are NOT pro-life, pro-marriage, etc. Or perhaps they're like Harry Reid where they claim to be pro-life for political convinence, but don't vote that way.
>> The fact that votets of Puerto Rican descent in NYC, Chicago, NJ and CT vote (mostly descended from poor, rural Puerto Ricans who moved up North during the Great Depression and into the early 50s) vote overwhelmingly Democrat says very little about the electorate in PR; a better proxy are the mostly lower-middle-class Puerto Ricans who have moved to Central Florida from the 1990s to today and voted for Gore in 2000, Jeb Bush in 2002, President Bush in 2004, Crist in 2006, Obama in 2008, and (by all indications) Marco Rubio in 2010. <<
That's just silly. You want to use Florida Puetro Ricans as an example of ethnic group as a whole when they're only a tiny percentage of Puetro Ricans. Florida Puetro Ricans are obviously influenced by the large Cuban-American community there that makes up the largest latino group in Florida and leans Republican. But the vast majority of Puetro Rican Americans are in NY & NJ, and as you noted, they vote overwhemingly RAT. I wouldn't even use the mainland vote to compare to the island vote, since many Puetro Rican Americans were born here and have never lived on the island.
As for the islanders, Puetro Ricans can't vote in general elections but they do vote in primaries. Those numbers there show they choose Democrats by an huge margin. Only 600 Puerto Ricans participated in the Hawaii Republican caucus, where the Hillary-Obama contest had 37,000 votes, and Obama won with 28,472 votes. Furthermore, the Puetro Rican statehood party, PNP, is NOT a Republican affliate. It has both Democrats and Republicans as members, and Democrats are quite a strong presenence in the party, including their current delegate to the U.S. Congress. But the remaining parties in Puetro Rico (PIP, PPD, Green, etc.) are uniformly leftist and favor Obama's policies. And again, the fact they have a pro-Obamacare RINO Governor is hardly proof the island supports conservative policies.
I have no doubt there are pockets of conservative voters and the island might elect a handful of votes, but I expect it to elect between 60-80% Democrats. The leftist presense (and complete ownership of most) political parties on the island today reflects this.
I also noted earlier, that for pragmatic reasons it's simply insane to grant statehood to an island that can't speak the language of the nation they would be admitted to. This is how the Roman Empire fell apart, by expanding its borders everywhere and letting everyone be "roman" regardless of whether they had anything in common with the empire, until it fell apart at the seems.
BillyBoy, your ignorance regarding Puerto Rico is overwhelming. Let me count the ways . . .
You think I’m cherry-picking when I look to Puerto Ricans in Central Florida, as opposed to The Bronx or the Chicago Barrio, for evidence of how Puerto Ricans would vote if PR were a state? I guess that you weren’t paying attention when I pointed out for your edification that most voters of Puerto Rican descent in NYC, Chicago, NJ, etc. are descendants of poor, rural Puerto Ricans who moved up North during the ‘30s, ‘40s and early ‘50s. Does it surprise you that poor people who moved into poor urban neighborhoods in that era voted Democrat, and that those that stayed in the Barrio kept voting that way? Now, those voters are completely different culturally and demographically from Puerto Ricans in Central Florida, most of whom were born and raised in Puerto Rico (a better proxy for voters in Puerto Rico, wouldn’t you say?), are of lower-middle-class or middle-class backgrounds, and don’t have the baggage of two generations of ancestors who voted Democrat in the Barrio. And for you to claim that Puerto Ricans in the Orlando area are more Republican-leaning because of the influence of Cuban-Americans, give me a break. There are far fewer Cuban-Americans than Puerto Ricans in Central Florida—most Cubans in Florida live far further south, mostly in Miami-Dade County, and those that live further north tend to live in Tampa, not Orlando, Kissimmee and Poinsettia—and Puerto Ricans would be as unlikely to mimic Cuban voting habits as Irish immigrants would be to ape how Scottish-Americans vote. So how Puerto Rico-born Puerto Ricans in Central Florida vote is far more instructive as to how a state of PR would vote than any other “evidence” of Puerto Rican voting habits that you may glean off some website.
As for the presidential primary voting in PR, it is you who is cherry-picking to the extreme. In 2000, with President Bush’s nomination pretty much in the bag by the time they voted in PR, and with the local McCain campaign being small and underfinanced, something like 100,000 voters turned out for the GOP primary, voting overwhelmingly for George W. Bush (he got like 97% IIRC). Meanwhile, a few hundred delegates voted in a local Democrat convention to give PR’s Democrat delegates to Gore. Did that mean that 99% of voters in PR were Republican? Of course not; all it meant was that the GOP held a primary (albeit a largely noncompetitive one), while the Dems held a state convention. Fast-forward to 2008, and the State Election Commission in PR asked both the GOP and the Democrats early in the year to hold conventions instead of primaries because there wasn’t enough money in its budget to pay for primaries. Both parties agreed. By the time the GOP convention was held, McCain had the nomination pretty much wrapped up and there wasn’t much of a groundswell to hold a primary. However, the Democrat nomination was very much up in the air, with Hillary having mounted a furious comeback in states such as TX and PA and with the entire nation’s eyes on every primary that remained. Well, the Democrats in PR saw this as an opportunity to get attention from the national media and concessions from Obama and Hillary and scheduled a primary instead, and the legislature allocated enough money to the State Elections Commission for the Democrat primary. Turnout was huge, with not onlt Democrats but also voters not affiliated with either party (the majority in PR) and even tens of thousands of Republicans (probably over 100,000 of them) voting in what was seen as an historic event (never before had anyone in the Mainland given a rat’s ass about what voters in PR thought). But the results weren’t an Obama victory as you claim, but a Hillary landslide of over 2:1. Obama was viewed as more liberal than Hillary, and got trounced.
As for the pro-statehood party in Puerto Rico, I am well aware that it is not affiliated with the national Republicans (as opposed to the leading pro-statehood party between 1900 and 1967, which was emphatically Republican), and that a significant number of leading statehooders are Democrats. This was done intentionally because, as Governor Luis A. Ferré (who was a delegate at every Republican National Convention from the 1930s until 2000) recognized, statehood could only succeed if it was bipartisan. But when I tell you that the governor, a majority of the state senators (including the Senate president), a majority of state representatives (including the Speaker), and the mayors of 6 of the 8 largest cities in PR (including San Juan) are pro-statehood Republicans, I mean that not only are they pro-statehood but that they are affiliated with the Republican Party.
Returning to the larger issue, you and I seem to have very different views of what makes someone an American. If someone speaks English, drives on the right side of the road and is a Christian, you think that he’s culturally American even if he salutes the Canadian, not the U.S. flag, and thinks that he is superior to “those uncouth Yanks” south of the border. I, however, think that being an American and fighting for America makes one culturally American even if one’s grandparents emigrated from Asia instead of Europe and even if it doesn’t dip below 70 degrees in the winter. I don’t thinkmthat Hawaiians are any less American than Vermonters (who are even more liberal than Hawaiians), and while I would be quite happy if both HI and VT decided to leave the Union (which would automatically give the GOP a majority in the U.S. Senate), I would never argue that they aren’t “real Americans” and should be kicked out of the Union.
You managed to locate ONE state where some Puetro Ricans pull the GOP lever, and tried to project it on the population as a whole. That would be like me trying to "prove" all Catholic Americans lean Republican by looking at the vote totals in a heavily GOP area of Texas that happens to have a large Catholic population.
Whether they're first generation or second generation is a factor, but the easiest way to figure out how the islanders would vote is to look at the island ITSELF, not those who moved to the mainland. Facts are facts, and of the last 12 delegates Puetro Rico sent to Congress, all but two of them were Democrats. Prior to that, during the FDR era, the two delegates were actually card-carrying members of the Socialist Party. These delegates were all choosen by the people of Puetro Rico via direct popular vote. Are we to believe that it's merely a coincidence that they choose Democrats constantly when given the choice, and the Republicans who lost all those elections, decade after decade, were just bad candidates? Give me a break.
The same is shown by who they elect as their Governor. I believe all but two were Republicans, and I think Fieldmarshaldj made the case that only one of them was a Conservative. It doesn't appear the current "Republican" Governor is conservative. If they occasionally elect a Maine-style RINO, it wouldn't do us any good. There may be some elected officials in Puetro Rico right now who who have an "R" next to their name, but are they CONSERVATIVE? That's the real issue at stake.
It's interesting that the statehood "movement" must be "bipartisan", but the commonwealth party, independence party, and all other parties on the island are monolithic leftist ideology. Assuming your premise is correct that many PR voters lean conservative, don't you find it odd that ALL their major parties have leftists in their top ranks? There is not a single "local" party representing conservative thought. Kind of odd for a population with a lot of "conservatives", I'd say. It seems clear to me when the Democrats on the national level want statehood for Puetro Rico, and I doubt it's because they feel its in the best interests of the U.S., or of Puetro Ricans (who have repeatedly rejected statehood)
>> If someone speaks English, drives on the right side of the road and is a Christian, you think that he’s culturally American even if he salutes the Canadian, not the U.S. flag, and thinks that he is superior to “those uncouth Yanks” south of the border. I, however, think that being an American and fighting for America makes one culturally American even if one’s grandparents emigrated from Asia instead of Europe and even if it doesn’t dip below 70 degrees in the winter. <<
I suppose you're right, we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I'd happily take Alberta before I considered any far away pacific island for U.S. statehood. I consider Canada's Stephen Harper, who never lived in America a day in his life, to be far more Americanized in mindset and culture than Barack Obama, who hails from Hawaii, was raised in Indonesia, moved here as an adult, and who's only involvement in "Christianity" as at the hate whitey church. The fact that tropic islanders want to help the American cause in our wars is admiral, but it doesn't mean they're Americanized. The Philippines is a former U.S. territory that has been a terrific ally and supported the U.S. in every major war over the last century as well, but we cut them loose and never proposed statehood for them. At least we were thinking rationally with that one.
You managed to locate ONE state where some Puetro Ricans pull the GOP lever, and tried to project it on the population as a whole. That would be like me trying to "prove" all Catholic Americans lean Republican by looking at the vote totals in a heavily GOP area of Texas that happens to have a large Catholic population.
Whether they're first generation or second generation is a factor, but the easiest way to figure out how the islanders would vote is to look at the island ITSELF, not those who moved to the mainland. Facts are facts, and of the last 12 delegates Puetro Rico sent to Congress, all but two of them were Democrats. Prior to that, during the FDR era, the two delegates were actually card-carrying members of the Socialist Party. These delegates were all chosen by the people of Puetro Rico via direct popular vote. Are we to believe that it's merely a coincidence that they choose Democrats constantly when given the choice, and the Republicans who lost all those elections, decade after decade, were just bad candidates? Give me a break.
The same is shown by who they elect as their Governor. I believe all but two were Republicans, and I think Fieldmarshaldj made the case that only one of them was a Conservative. It doesn't appear the current "Republican" Governor is conservative. If they occasionally elect a Maine-style RINO, it wouldn't do us any good. There may be some elected officials in Puetro Rico right now who who have an "R" next to their name, but are they CONSERVATIVE? That's the real issue at stake.
It's interesting that the statehood "movement" must be "bipartisan", but the commonwealth party, independence party, and all other parties on the island are monolithic leftist idealogy. Assuming your premise is correct that many PR voters lean conservative, don't you find it odd that ALL their major parties have leftists in their top ranks? There is not a single "local" party representing conservative thought. Kind of odd for a population with a lot of "conservatives", I'd say. It seems clear to me when the Democrats on the national level want statehood for Puetro Rico, and I doubt it's because they feel its in the best interests of the U.S., or of Puetro Ricans (who have repeatedly rejected statehood)
>> If someone speaks English, drives on the right side of the road and is a Christian, you think that he’s culturally American even if he salutes the Canadian, not the U.S. flag, and thinks that he is superior to “those uncouth Yanks” south of the border. I, however, think that being an American and fighting for America makes one culturally American even if one’s grandparents emigrated from Asia instead of Europe and even if it doesn’t dip below 70 degrees in the winter. <<
I suppose you're right, we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I'd happily take Alberta before I considered any far away pacific island for U.S. statehood. I consider Canada's Stephen Harper, who never lived in America a day in his life, to be far more Americanized in mindset and culture than Barack Obama, who hails from Hawaii, was raised in Indonesia, moved here as an adult, and who's only involvement in "Christianity" as at the hate whitey church. The fact that tropic islanders want to help the American cause in our wars is admiral, but it doesn't mean they're Americanized. The Phillipines is a former U.S. territory that has been a terrific ally and supported the U.S. in every major war over the last century as well, but we cut them loose and never proposed statehood for them. At least we were thinking rationally with that one.
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