Charles Djou’s Maui Ohana And Biggest Supporter

Johnny Jackson

Aloha everyone! It’s March and the Arakawa era is rapidly coming to a close.
Things are certainly heating up in the political world of Maui with the announcement that Councilmember Charmaine Tavares is throwing her hat into the ring to vie for mayor. One can’t help but wonder what Hurricane Arakawa is thinking now. I will have more to say on this a little bit later but first there’s some clerical work that needs attending to.
I received a comment that it is unfair to compare the rate of turnover in Arakawa’s immediate staff against that of the County of Maui as a whole.
Remember, in the last issue, I compared the County’s turnover rate of 5% per four years against the turnover in Arakawa’s immediate staff over three years. I believe that the objection raised has merit as it can be argued that I was comparing apples-to-oranges, not apples-to-apples. So let’s take a look at the Apana administration’s immediate staff turnover rate and see how it compares to
Arakawa’s.
In four years, the Apana administration had zero (0), yes zero, individuals leave the Office of the Mayor, Office of the Budget Director, Office of Economic Development, and Community Development Block Grant. On the other hand, in the three years of the Arakawa administration, there have been thirty position eruptions for the 28 slots. Clearly, these statistics demonstrate that Arakawa’s administration is even more feckless, leaderless, systemically dysfunctional, and in complete turmoil than when compared to the County as a whole.
Now it’s on to Hurricane’s most recent set of dirty tricks. I’ve said it over and over again that in my opinion Arakawa will betray anyone at any time as long as he thinks he can get away with it. If Hurricane thinks that the person being screwed won’t find out that he’s been screwed by Arakawa, or that the victim poses no threat to Arakawa, Arakawa will insert a dagger at the drop of a
hat. This behavioral trait is cowardly and typical of insecure people like Hurricane.
I know many of you read Lopaka Coleman’s letter to the editor begging Tavares to run for the House seat currently held by Ed Case and not for mayor of Maui County. The argument made in Coleman’s letter was that if Arakawa and Tavares ended up in a three way race with Apana, Arakawa and Tavares would both somehow lose and Apana would win the election. Here we go again with another Arakawa deception designed to try to scare you. (Remember that list of 3,800 homes to be built that he’s running around brandishing with the claim Maui is becoming another Oahu?) But it’s like everything else with Arakawa, the letter is nothing more than a hoax. Anyone who knows anything about our mayoral electoral system knows that the top two vote getters coming out of the primary election run against each other in the general election and that this happens because the mayor’s election is non-partisan. As such, there is no possible way in the three-way primary race, as described in Coleman’s letter, to eliminate both Arakawa and Tavares in the primary and have Apana win by default. Simply put, either Arakawa or Tavares, must move on to the general election if Apana has made it into the general.
So why the letter? Well, Arakawa isn’t worried about Apana, at least he isn’t right now. Arakawa is worried about not making it out of the primary election and into the general election. He’s worried to death that Tavares will take him out, and with that loss he will become known as the most discredited mayor in the history of the State of Hawai‘i. So the letter was never about Apana, it was a self-serving quip written to protect his political okole and save his abysmal legacy.
Finally, Lopaka old buddy, you might want to not sign anymore letters for Arakawa as he left you hanging and looking pretty damned ignorant. You also might want to remove that greasy stiletto sticking out from between the blades of your misused shoulders.
However, Coleman’s letter doesn’t establish Arakawa’s behavior as being anything especially cowardly. Heck, Lopaka knew what he was doing when he signed the letter, and the letter was nothing more than a pitiful self serving attempt by Arakawa to convince Tavares to bail out of the mayor’s race. Everything here essentially is on the up and up, except the deception about how the mayor’s race operates. (From Arakawa you can’t expect to get the whole truth at anytime.)
Unfortunately there were other things The Un-natural Disaster was doing behind the scenes to encourage Tavares to run for Case’s seat that were down right nasty.
Before Lopaka’s letter ever hit the paper, Hurricane was going around talking up Tavares as a candidate for Case’s seat. Of course, he couldn’t give hoot if she was either qualified for the position or had snowball’s chance in hell of winning. He just wanted her out of his race.
But in order to make the argument of why Tavares would be a perfect candidate for Case’s seat, Arakawa needed to address the viability of other potential Republican candidates. (Bear in mind that the House of Representative seat held by Case is a partisan seat and the primaries determine who from each party battles for the seat in the general election.) The Republican front-runner that was being talked about around the state and with some measure of excitement was Honolulu Councilmember Charles Djou. For those of you on Maui who don’t know who Djou is, he is a very bright and articulate lawyer that represents the Waikiki district on the Honolulu Council. I’ve known Djou for many years. Djou is quite glib, with an amazing ability to speak off the cuff in a coherent manner, something Arakawa cannot do.
Anyway, if he runs you will be able to assess his talents when he campaigns on Maui. By the way, Djou also represents the future of the Hawai‘i Republican party and much has been invested in his success by the Republicans. Since the Republicans are the minority party in Hawai‘i, Djou enjoys a special status as someone that will one day carry the party mantle forward in hopes that party will grow around him. I believe that Djou will be able to fill these huge shoes when the time comes, assuming that after this, he’s still a
Republican.
So here’s Arakawa going around Maui talking up Tavares, but Djou is in the way.
So what do you think Arakawa goes and does? You are absolutely right! He starts a nasty whisper campaign sabotaging Djou.
Hurricane tells everyone that Djou is not a serious candidate – indeed, he’s little more than a “court jester.”
Can you imagine that? Arakawa begins his own re-election campaign by undermining the political future of one of the few true rising stars in Hawai‘i’s Republican Party. I wonder how this will all play out when Djou’s opposition starts referring to him as The Court Jester.
But this isn’t the first time Arakawa screwed over the Republican Party. Remember his interview with the Haleakala Times where he claimed he didn’t support the re-election of President
Bush even though he was the Chairman of the Maui Committee to Re-elect Bush?
And remember the week before the last election, Arakawa took off to Okinawa and both Blundell and Bukowski lost. If Arakawa had been here and been able to influence a mere 45 votes, Blundell’s re-election would have been assured. And let’s not forget the thrashing Don Couch took at the hands of Roz Baker, and
Couch works for Hurricane. Insert the pike as deeply as possible and rotate.
The only thing to come out of this pitiful betrayal of friendship and party is that with Djou now serving as Court Jester, Arakawa must be the Village Idiot.

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