Hawaii’s Democratic Party is about to turn the page; it appears a new generation is slipping in.
Since the death of Hawaii’s ultimate senior senator, Daniel K. Inouye, the state’s dominant but somewhat disorganized political party has been drifting. Stephanie Ohigashi stepped in as party chairwoman two years ago, but the longtime Maui Democrat was never seen as a permanent new leader.
Now this month, the Democrats will gather at their state convention to select a new party chairman. Tyler Dos Santos-Tam and Jacce Mikulanec, the top two candidates, are both minor leaders about to become major leaders in the party.
Mikulanec, 39, is a legislative veteran who worked as an aide to Brian Schatz when he was lieutenant governor and Blake Oshiro when he was in the state House. He is now a lobbyist for the Hawaii Medical Service Association (HMSA).
“I may be something of a bridge between the Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton camps,” said Mikulanec.
Dos Santos-Tam, 28, is executive director of the Hawaii Construction Alliance and benefits from having a close working relationship with many of the state’s private sector unions.
“The party needs a strong foundation or it will not continue to succeed,” Dos Santos-Tam said.
Like Mikulanec, Dos Santos-Tam is a Clinton supporter, but also acknowledges that the current Hawaii Democratic Party is filled with supporters of the Vermont senator and not the former secretary of state.
So far there are two other possible candidates: environmentalist Tim Vanderveer and Kealii Lopez, the former state commerce and consumer affairs director under former Gov. Neil Abercrombie.
The two leading candidates are walking a political tightrope between campaigning for Clinton and staying neutral in the face of a local party that went 70 percent for Sanders in the presidential preference poll.
The state Democratic chairman is a superdelegate to the national convention, so because Mikulanec and Dos Santos-Tam already support Clinton either would be expected to vote for her, although they both tried to sound as neutral as possible.
“The job of the party chair is about much more than casting one vote in Philadelphia,” said Dos Santos-Tam.
While executing that tricky balancing act, the Democrats’ new leader’s alliance with Clinton probably won’t be a unifying performance either, because Clinton’s Hawaii coalition is mostly a gathering of fiefdoms, as one veteran Democrat put it.
“You have the old Democrats from Inouye’s clan, and there are Abercrombie Democrats and Democrats with the (former U.S. Rep. Colleen) Hanabusa group, while both the (Sen. Mazie) Hirono and (Sen. Brian) Schatz groups are not actively engaged,” explained the longtime Democrat, who asked for anonymity.
For the group, it is not so much a question of getting everyone paddling in the same direction as it is just making sure that they are not whacking each other with their paddles.
So far, Gov. David Ige has proven to be a decidedly nonpartisan leader, which means he has not exerted his own political leadership over the party.
For Dos Santos-Tam and Mikulanec, it means that moving from party loyalist to party leader will bring together a new Democratic Party.
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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.
