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GOP consultant Karl Rove got directly involved Friday in Hawaii's hotly contested Congressional race between Republican incumbent Rep. Charles Djou and Democrat Colleen Hanabusa. Rove's group American Crossroads started running an ad on Hawaii television stations Friday critical of Hanabusa. The TV commercial says, "There are problems in paradise, and Colleen Hanabusa would make things worse. Hanabusa supports Nancy Pelosi's tsunami of spending. She defends the trillion dollar health care takeover that raises our costs and cuts Medicare by over $500 billion. She has said she will support the cap and trade energy tax that will raise the cost of...

Despite a categorical denial, evidence is mounting that leading Hawaii gubernatorial candidate Neil Abercrombie, is a covert socialist. What is worse, he may be lying about it. In response to a; July 12 post questioning whether that Mr Abercrombie was a member of America's largest marxist organization, Democratic Socialists of America, his campaign issued a statement saying; QUESTION: Was Neil a member of the Democratic Socialists of America or any other socialist or communist organization? ANSWER: NO. Neil has never been part of any socialist or communist organization. My original post included documentary evidence, from Democratic Socialists of America publications...

Chris Bowers, the OpenLeft blogger who's one of the most battle-hardened and influential members of the lefty Net roots, rakes me over the coals for my post on conservatives organizing for Hawaii GOP congressional candidate Charles Djou. Read it all, but here's the key bit. Crediting the online organizing Weigel lists for Republican success in Hawaii is like crediting a particularly nice font on yard signs, combined with a well-run press conference, for a campaign victory. Democrats are losing this campaign because there are two Dems splitting the vote. That's it. Even if Djou has improved his position over the...

Republican Charles Djou won the special election in Hawaii's First Congressional District – the Honolulu district where President Obama grew up. Djou is only the third Republican Hawaii has elected to Congress since statehood. In 2008, Mr. Obama took the district with 70 percent of the vote, and no Hawaiian congressional district had returned a Republican for 20 years. Taking his cues from another Republican who won in firmly Democratic territory – Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts – Djou saw the election as a repudiation of one-party rule. "The congressional seat is not owned by one political party. This congressional...

GOP Wins Special Election in Obama’s Hawaii Posted By Publius On May 22, 2010 @ 9:38 pm In Congress, News, Obama, Politics, State Politics | 22 Comments From the Honolulu Advertiser [1]: Honolulu City Councilman Charles Djou has won the special election in urban Honolulu’s 1st Congressional District, the first Republican sent to Washington, D.C., to represent the Islands in two decades. According to the state Office of Elections, Djou leads with 39.5 percent of the vote, followed by 30.8 percent for state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa and 27.6 percent for former congressman Ed Case. The remaining 11 other candidates...

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May 22, 2010 Republicans Capture House Seat in Obama's Hometown Honolulu -- Republicans scored a midterm election victory Saturday when Honolulu City Councilman Charles Djou won a Democratic-held House seat in Hawaii in the district where President Obama grew up -- the latest triumph for the GOP as it looks to take back control of Congress. Djou's victory was a blow to Obama and other Democrats who could not rally around a candidate and find away to win a congressional race that should have been a cakewalk. The seat had been held by a Democrat for nearly 20 years and...

A Republican candidate has prevailed over a crowded special election to represent President Obama’s Hawaiian birthplace in the House of Representatives. The victory of Charles Djou, a Honolulu city councilman, was not a surprise, but it served to bolster his party as it seeks to chip away at the Democratic majority. The special election was called after Representative Neil Abercrombie, a Democrat, announced last year that he would resign before completing his 10th term in order to focus on his candidacy for governor. Mr. Djou beat out 13 other candidates with 39.5 percent of the vote in Hawaii’s First Congressional...

Republican Charles Djou has won a Democratic-held House seat in Hawaii in the district where President Obama grew up. The special election is the latest battleground in the fight for control of Congress in the midterm races.

HONOLULU (AP) -- Republican Charles Djou (duh-JOO') has won a Democratic-held House seat in Hawaii in the district where President Barack Obama grew up. The special election is the latest triumph for the GOP as it looks to take back control of Congress.

Democrats are bracing for the loss of a House seat Saturday in President Obama's birthplace of Hawaii, where a special election in a heavily Democratic district has inflamed tensions within the party

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee won't be spending any more money in the May 22 Hawaii special election, Hotline OnCall's Reid Wilson reports. The race for the state's First Congressional District, where President Obama was born and raised, features two Democrats--former Rep. Ed Case and state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa--and it appears the two will split the Democratic vote, paving the way for Republican Charles Djou to hold the seat until he gets challenged by one or the other of those two Dems in November. The DCCC had been airing ads attacking Djou, while not endorsing either of the Dems...

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced this morning that it will cease spending money in the Hawaii special election race set for later this month, a decision that almost certainly will hand Republicans a victory.

The DCCC is pulling out of the race to replace ex-Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), effectively ceding the heavily Dem seat to the GOP as intra-party feuding splits the vote. "The DCCC will not be investing additional resources in the HI-01 (Abercrombie-open) special election. Local Democrats were unable to work out their differences," DCCC communications director Jennifer Crider said in an emailed statement. "The DCCC will save the resources we would have invested in the Hawaii special election this month for the general election in November." The move comes as polls show Honolulu City Councillor Charles Djou (R) leading 2 other...

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the panel charged with getting Democrats elected to the House, is pulling out of the race to replace former Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) in a special election scheduled for later this month. Former Rep. Ed Case (D-HI) is vying with Hawaii state senator Colleen Hanabusa (D) along with Honolulu City Councilman Charles Djou (R) for the right to succeed Abercrombie.

The AP's David Espo reports that the White House sent Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as an emissary to ask Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye "to change course" for the sake of the Democratic Party, which has a good chance of losing a special election. The special election will fill an open House seat, and it's being handled without a primary. Both of the Democrats who want the job are on the ballot against a single Republican, which makes the math a lot harder for the party that's seeing its vote split. "It's an extremely difficult race, since two Democratic candidates...

The open seat vacated by former Congressman Neil Abercrombie, Hawaiian Democrat, who is now running for governor, has caused more headaches for Democrats than the party bargained for. Republican Honolulu Councilman Charles Djou became a thorn in the side of the Democratic Party when two Democrats running against him in the three way special Congressional election, former Congressman Ed Case and state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa, run the risk of splitting each other's vote. There is no primary in Hawaii and the race is a winner takes all election, so Democrats are scrambling to make sure Mr. Djou does not...

At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, President Obama drew applause when he mocked the conspiracy theory that he was born in Kenya. “It's been quite a year since I've spoken here last—lots of ups, lots of downs—except for my approval ratings, which have just gone down. But that's politics. Beside[s], I happen to know that my approval ratings are still very high in the country of my birth.” Birthers notwithstanding, Obama is facing embarrassing setbacks in both his actual birthplace state (Hawaii) and his adopted home (Illinois). In Hawaii, which is in the throes of a special election...

Republicans hold an eight-point lead in the Hawaii special election as the mail-in voting begins in the race, according to a new Honolulu Advertiser poll. The poll shows Honolulu City Councilman Charles Djou (R) with 36 percent of the vote, former Rep. Ed Case (D-Hawaii) at 28 percent and state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa (D) at 22 percent. Just 13 percent of voters are undecided.

HONOLULU, April 30, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pro-family advocates were taken by surprise when the Hawaii House of Representatives unexpectedly revived and passed legislation that would establish same-sex civil unions and make them equivalent to marriage, nearly three months after everyone thought the issue was a dead letter.The Senate bill taken up by the House (HB 444) "extends the same rights, benefits, protections, and responsibilities of spouses in a marriage to partners in a civil union."Back in February, the House decided to take the legislation off its agenda for the rest of the legislative year in a voice vote that would...