I was really surprised that President Obama endorsed Sen. Brian Schatz over Rep. Colleen Hanabusa. I figured he’d stay out of that fight even if he had a clear preference. But, I guess Hanabusa has antagonized the administration sufficiently that they decided to put their thumb on the scale.
There’s a whole ethnic element to this, too, with Schatz being Jewish and Hanabusa being of Japanese heritage, as well the gender component. Those are the main reasons why I didn’t think Obama would get involved.
But he did.
Reading that, I’m surprised Obama didn’t send over some drunken Secret Service agents to pee on her lawn.
I didn’t realize she was so putrid (the minimum wage thing alone is unforgivable, both substantively and politically). Every progressives in Hawaii should pee on her lawn.
Nice to have some hard-politics evidence like this to show those who think Obama is a New Dem himself. Please may we have some more?
More complicated than that. Neil Abercrombie, who appointed Schatz, was college friends with Obama’s parents. He’s been supportive of Barack and did what he could to end the birth certificate nonsense when he was elected Gov. Hanabusa has some ethical issues and has been a weak candidate for federal office in several elections. (Obama won 70% of the vote in 2012 and Hanabusa only won 54.6%) In 2008 Schatz backed Obama and Hanabusa backed Clinton.
I could not care one ounce about ethnicity and neither does the president. In what sense is this woman a Democrat?
You should look at the 2010 special election where she split the Democratic vote with Ed Case.
Case would have been awful. Hanabusa is better than Case. Thankfully we have a chance to get someone better than Hanabusa in the House.
From the less obviously biased Wikipedia:
About the only thing I agree with her on was the cats/dogs bill.