COURTESY MAYOR CALDWELL’S OFFICE
President Barack Obama arrived at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam on Aug. 31 and was greeted by Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell.
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Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell scored two key endorsements in his re-election bid this week, including a nod from the commander in chief.
The Caldwell campaign announced President Barack Obama’s endorsement in a press release Thursday.
“Kirk demonstrates local values and manages with a local heart. I see the changes and improvements when I come home to Honolulu,” Obama said in the statement. “I urge voters to give him the opportunity to finish the work that he has started.”
Both Caldwell and Obama are Democrats, although the city’s mayoral race is nonpartisan. Caldwell’s challenger, Charles Djou, has served as a Republican in both the state and U.S. Houses.
Caldwell further received an endorsement Thursday from Unite Here Local 5, the state’s fourth-largest union, representing some 11,000 hotel and hospital employees. Eric Gill, Unite Here Local 5’s financial secretary treasurer, said the union hasn’t endorsed for mayor in the past two election cycles, but it saw fit to do so after multiple meetings with both candidates.
“There’s been different dynamics. … We don’t always jump in but we decided to this time,” Gill said Thursday. The union’s membership concluded that Caldwell would be better suited to address their concerns over Oahu’s housing crunch as well as securing adequate wages and benefits from the island’s global hotel corporations, he added.
Caldwell also attended a rally last year to support the union’s Kaiser Permanente employees as they looked to secure their pensions, Unite Here Local 5 spokeswoman Paola Rodelas added.
In June, Djou scored endorsements from five other organized labor unions that had backed Caldwell in two previous bids.
