Aloha, Republicans:
During a
cringe-inducing interview this past Friday on Rick Hamada’s radio show on KHVH 830 AM, current GOP state chair Shirlene "Do Nothing" Ostrov actually described herself on the air as a "
military commander" and proclaimed boldly that "
I'm looking at campaigns to win the war" against Democrats. [
Pause reading here to allow yourself a full minute of laughter.]
With only four short months until early balloting begins in the 2018 General Election, there's a very real chance that folks are so used to watching Hewaii's Republican Party blow election after election that
RINO Ostrov's failed chairmanship is not any more shocking than Fritz Rohlfing's or Pat Saiki's or David Chang's. Likewise, the
liberal voting record of RINO minority leader Andria "Driver's Licenses for Illegal Aliens" Tupola might not be any more shocking than her RINO party leader predecessors Beth "I've always been a Democrat" Fukumoto-Chang, Aaron "Ling" Johanson, and Gene "Obamacare" Ward.
We've all just gotten used to this toxic mix of incompetence and liberalism and losing.
While many former supporters of Shirlene Ostrov have begun parting company with the puppet chair who was plucked from obscurity by
Pat Saiki and the
Lingle Rail-Tax Deniers at the
Oahu League of RINO Women (
also turncoat Djou's biggest donors), Ostrov's remaining supporters appear to have been overcome with an acute form of
Stockholm Syndrome which paralyzes the sections of the brain where memory and logic are centered.
Since Day One, Ostrov’s faux ‘military campaign’ at the state party has been made up of very specific promises --
promises Ostrov made when she ran for the post of state chair 15 months ago. Today's HIRA newsletter revisits Ostrov's explicit promises so that the electoral disaster awaiting the Hawaii GOP in a few weeks will make perfect sense to even the most brainwashed Patty Hearst types down at the Oahu League. First, however, we start with Ostrov's recent multiple assurances that all is great at the state party . . . so great, in fact, that 2018 will be "historic".
*** PROMISE #1: On 19 March 2018, Ostrov issued a press release in the wake of Charles Djou's resignation from the Hawaii GOP with an unmistakable pledge that, ”
Our new leadership team is moving steadily forward with a bold and ambitious agenda and are poised to make historic gains in the 2018 elections.” Then again, as recently as last month at the state party convention in Kaneohe, Ostrov promised Republicans and the news media alike that the Hawaii GOP "
would make HISTORIC GAINS gains this election cycle". Historic gains. Well, on last Friday's Hamada radio show, Ostrov explained that her new vice chair for candidate recruitment is former 90's party chair Jane Tatibouet, whom Ostrov erroneously credited for increasing the ranks of elected Republicans at the State Capitol by a whopping 17 new members of the legislature (a rise from 4 to 21).
Sadly, the reality is that the increase was merely from 7 to 12 (an increase of 5). But, hey, what’s a little resume padding? Still, let's agree to call an increase of 5 "historic". And let's call breaking even or even losing seats when the issues are on our side as "disastrous". But the reason Ostrov's promise of "historic gains" can’t and won’t be kept is because the rest of her
promises made 16 months ago were just buzz words selected to fool gullible convention delegates who actually WANTED those very things to be delivered.
*** PROMISE #2: Education, outreach, persuasion, blah, blah, blah . . .From Ostrov's campaign website:
https://www.shirleneostrov.net/statement-of-candidacy
The Verdict? -- Broken. Sorry, just ask voters anywhere. At the grocery store, just ask the people in front of you or behind you if they know any reasons that they should vote R instead of D in 2018. Simply no case has been made. The entire burden has been put (as usual) on the shoulders of our underfunded, undersupported, late-starting candidates. There's been no education of voters, no persuasion, no outreach, and no 'stepping on the gas to accelerate'. Nothing but silence. Ostrov and her slate of running mates completely failed to make the case for change to Hawaii voters. Was she hoping that Democrats would publicly blame themselves for everything wrong? Did she think Democrats would make the case to vote Republican? Think again.
*** PROMISE #3: Independent Audit
The Verdict? -- Broken. Maybe "first order of business" means something different to Ostrov than everyone else walking the planet. But the "very short-term completion date" for her "independent analysis" has slipped now into the 13th month of her tenure. Her claim of "transparency at all levels of leadership" was as flimsy as her empty commitment to spreading the word about GOP solutions and reforms to voters. Disingenuously, she claims to "have no personal or private agenda", yet fails to note that she serves simultaneously as state chair for the Hawaii GOP and vice-president for the Oahu League of RINO Women; a liberal Republican auxiliary which has controlled the Hawaii GOP (and a half-ownership share of the party's Kapiolani headquarters) for decades. Democrats won't take our call for an audit of HART seriously when the head of the Hawaii GOP fails to deliver to its own members the audit of the party she promised on Day One.
*** PROMISE #4: Party Platform Free of Manipulation
The Verdict? -- Broken. Ostrov deliberately manipulated the outcome of the platform process to a degree which makes her manipulative predecessors seem innocent by comparison. On the eve of the state convention last month, Ostrov shredded the final work product of the statewide platform committee, applied undue influence by sequestering herself with Andria Tupola's running mate (from the state chair race in 2017) behind closed doors, rewrote the platform (cutting out pages and pages of approved planks), re-convened a handful of members of the platform committee to obtain an illusory 're-approval' of her manipulated platform, and then didn't even allow discussion of the platform by convention delegates. Ostrov abused her power and violated party rules, by unacceptably ramming through the Ostrov rewrite with zero debate, zero discussion, and zero adherence to either her promise or party rules. This woman simply cannot be believed.
*** PROMISE #5: Published Calendar of Party Meetings
The Verdict? -- Broken. Sorry, Shirlene. You simply haven't done this. The party website and communications are a total embarrassment. The lack of a calendar is just another glaring black hole in a sea of nothingness. Perhaps the problem is that you are out-of-town so often on non-party business like running your company on the mainland, unlike the "full-time party chair" you repeatedly promised to be. But even busy people use calendars so they don't miss meetings. And calendars are easy to publish in the 21st Century, if you've got nothing to hide and if the "tough work" is really being tackled. SPOILER ALERT: We already know the tough work needed to win elections is NOT being done.
*** PROMISE #6: Ostrov and Her Running Mates Will Actually Do Their Jobs
The Verdict? -- Broken. Not one party officer that Ostrov ran with on her slate in 2017 has been succeeding in their jobs and
Ostrov doesn't seem to care. Ostrov's Vice Chair for Coalitions is leaving our candidates empty-handed with no winning coalitions developed. Ostrov's low energy Vice Chair for Community Service has likewise left the public wondering if Republicans in Hawaii ever perform volunteer work at all. Jonathan Kunimura, Ostrov's Vice Chair for Communications, has arguably done more to help his pal Charles Djou to attack the Hawaii GOP upon renouncing his party membership than he's done to advance the cause of the state party after more than 13 months on the job. Ostrov's Vice Chair for Candidate Recruitment failed to find candidates for most races in 2018. There are more Democrats running unopposed for re-election than there are districts with Republican candidates. Worst of all, Ostrov's Vice Chair for Coordinated Campaigns is Pat Saiki. The coming political disaster in 2018 is primarily attributable to Ostrov and Saiki's gross negligence explained with the next broken promise.
*** PROMISE #7: Ostrov says Party Rules will be Followed
The Verdict? -- Broken. Obviously, Ostrov was only kidding when she made this promise. Rulebreaking is rampant at party headquarters. Most notable is how Ostrov and her party officer running mates blatantly ignore their own
explicit job descriptions which were written to make sure that party officers actually tried to win elections. One of the most crucial breakdowns is Ostrov's failure to perform the required duty of
supervising (Section 406 of HRP Rules) the work of her Vice Chair for Coordinated Campaigns, Pat Saiki. And with Ostrov having
promised to be a "full-time" state chair, she has
no excuse for this breakdown in performance.
Under party rules (Section 407), Saiki is responsible for the Hawaii GOP's
Voter Identification campaign (canvassing all 700,000 registered voters to see who the Republicans are), the
Voter Registrationcampaign (signing up hundreds of thousands more potentially Republican voters), the
Absentee Ballot program (getting folks to vote early and for Republicans), the
Get-Out-The-Vote program (making sure all the identified Republicans actually cast ballots), and much more.
NONE of this is happening. Pat Saiki isn't doing any of this.
And Shirlene Ostrov knows it. At a recent meeting of the party's State Committee, a chilling report was given that revealed how a total of ZERO voters out of 700,000 had been canvassed under Saiki and Ostrov in order to identify their political leanings (so that candidates know who to focus their campaigns on -AND- so that the Get-Out-The-Vote effort in October and November only encourages Republican-leaning voters in each race to cast ballots).
This gross negligence by Saiki and Ostrov is a scary situation which completely blows up Ostrov's pretense of being a 'military commander campaigning against Democrats'. Let's be honest. Without this important work being done, the Hawaii GOP is in a war with
no weapons,
no ammunition,
no supplies, and
no idea where the enemy is located. In 2018,
Hawaii Republicans are sitting ducks with idiots for generals. Long story short, the party and its 'thrown-to-the-wolves' candidates have no way to make sure that Republican-leaning voters actually turn out to vote in 2018 because Shirlene Ostrov, Pat Saiki and the rest of Ostrov's RINO running mates refused to do the work needed to win.
*** PROMISE #8: Ostrov says Party Will Take on the Democrats
The Verdict? -- Broken. Since absolutely no 'strategic messages' have been 'planted all over the state', the average Hawaii voter has been given no idea why they should vote any differently than they have in years gone by. Perhaps Ostrov means to start doing this AFTER the 2018 election? Because there's no 'contrast', there's no 'message', there's no 'communication', there's no 'values and issues'. Just total silence which sets up our candidates for failure and which emboldens the state legislature and county councils to continue ignoring conservative reforms and solutions while continuing to move leftward with each new law, budget, and tax passed.
In closing, it’s a terrible thing knowing that our state party is still controlled by closet Democrats who systematically engineer the weakening of the Republican Party. What this means is that Hawaii's Democrats face no real challenge every two years, just an illusory one. Even potential GOP candidates know this as they decline to run for office. As the Honolulu Star-Advertiser recently noted, "
With each passing election cycle the state has become, increasingly, a Democratic Party stronghold, with the isle Republicans fielding fewer candidates."
Sadly,
Shirlene Ostrov's promises aren't worth jack squat. Call it malfeasance, misfeasance or nonfeasance, the job simply isn't getting done by the state chair and her do-nothing posse elected last year at the Kauai state convention. They promised to make everything better. They promised "historic gains" in 2018. Even the local news media can see we're on the verge of a historic trainwreck. You can draw a straight line from Ostrov's broken promises to the the widely-reported "collapse" of the Isle GOP which will culminate in historic losses on November 6th.
As Star-Advertiser columnist David Shapiro laments, "
With each election cycle, it becomes more difficult to take Hawaii Republicans seriously as a major political party." And this joke of a party was made possible by a succession of RINO's and closet Democrats like Shirlene Ostrov whose idea of 'leadership' is to tell party members what they want to hear in order to win top officer positions at state conventions, then merely sit back and let Democrats win.
The next opportunity to break this vicious cycle through new party leadership comes in 2019 after another two wasted years. Until then, HIRA urges you to help
conservative candidates in 2018 all you can. Beware of the RINO's on the ballot (and there are several) who make no bones about the fact that
positions on issues and political principles and ideology don't matter much to them -
just getting into office and getting along with Democrats. Sorry, we've had enough of closet Democrats after enduring Beth Fukumoto, Andria Tupola, Aaron Johanson, Kym Pine, Cynthia Thielen, Lauren Cheape, Bob "Rail Tax" McDermott, and Gene Ward without electing Fukumoto's clone to replace her in office. Auwe to that!
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