Jeff Davis, the Libertarian Party candidate for governor, was not invited to a candidate forum this month sponsored by the Building Owners and Managers Association of Hawaii at the Hawaii Prince Hotel in Waikiki.
Undaunted, Davis showed up anyway and talked his way onstage with state Sen. David Ige, the Democrat, former Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona, the Republican, and former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann, the independent.
These kinds of indignities are familiar to minor-party candidates, but Davis, a 58-year-old solar contractor and talk radio host, has chosen not to suffer them quietly.
"Without changing our government from the top down, we will forever be piecing the broken pieces of the puzzle back together," he said in an interview at a downtown Starbucks.
Davis has forced his way into the conversation on the governor’s race in a year when a minor-party candidate could have an influence. With three major candidates, the winner could prevail with a plurality, and if the vote is close, the sliver expected to go to Davis could act as a spoiler.
No Libertarian Party candidate has ever won an election in Hawaii or played a decisive role in a statewide campaign. But in 1994, in an election that closely parallels this year’s governor race, a minor-party candidate was involved.
Kioni Dudley, a Green Party candidate, claimed 3.4 percent of the vote for governor in 1994. Gov. Ben Cayetano, a Democrat, won with 36 percent, followed by former Honolulu Mayor Frank Fasi of the Best Party at 30 percent and former Congresswoman Pat Saiki, a Republican, at 28 percent.
"Frank Fasi always told me that he felt that my 3 percent cost him the governorship," said Dudley, an environmental activist who serves on the Makakilo-Kapolei-Honokai Hale Neighborhood Board.
The 12,969 votes Dudley received would actually not have been enough for Fasi to catch Cayetano, but Dudley still left a mark. No minor-party candidate for governor since has matched or exceeded his share of the vote.
Dudley, who has appeared on Davis’ "Hawaii’s Tomorrow" radio show on KGU-AM 760, maintains Davis should receive broader news coverage and be included in debates.
"I’ve been on his radio show a number of times, and I think he really had a lot to say," he said. "I wish he was given more coverage."
As a Libertarian, the party that champions individual freedom and less government, Davis would be more likely to draw votes that would otherwise go to Aiona, the Republican.
There is a vocal and active libertarian streak among Hawaii conservatives — through groups such as The Grassroot Institute — who have tried to influence debates over Native Hawaiian sovereignty and the Jones Act, the federal maritime law that protects the domestic shipping industry from foreign competition.
Aiona needs to at least take the 40 percent of the vote he received when he lost to Gov. Neil Abercrombie in 2010 to be competitive this year, so the Republican cannot afford to shed many votes.
Ted Kwong, a communications adviser to the Hawaii Republican Party, said "Republicans are united around a message of change" and have not seen polling data that suggests Aiona could drop a significant number of votes to Davis.
While the Libertarian Party has struggled for relevance, the libertarian philosophy has had some political currency nationally over the past several years.
Ron Paul, an obstetrician and former Republican congressman from Texas, earned some grass-roots support for his GOP presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012 with what were essentially libertarian principles on limited government, individual liberty and a noninterventionist foreign policy. U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Paul’s son, has built a national following with his libertarian-tinged ideas and could launch a GOP campaign for president in 2016.
"We tell people, ‘You should vote for the person you think would make the best’ — whatever the office is," said Tracy Ryan, chairwoman of the Libertarian Party of Hawaii. "And not be influenced by who you think has a chance to win, or by voting against people, or anything like that.
"And if you’ve listened to the Libertarian candidate and you think, ‘That’s the guy I’d rather have representing me or in that office,’ then you should vote for him. That’s how you should be as a voter."
Davis, who was born in California and moved to Hawaii in 1978, has never run for political office before. He describes himself as a "functional Libertarian," but he abhors the constraint of party labels.
Known as the "Solar Guy" on the radio — an evening drive-time show that he pays Salem Communications to air — the garrulous Davis offers a populist mix of policy ideas with the overriding message that voters will never get change if they keep electing the same kind of politicians.
"You have to get real people driving the bus," he said.
Davis would seek a Hawaii exemption to the Jones Act, which he sees as protectionist and the root of the state’s high cost of living. The shipping industry — and most of Hawaii’s political establishment — defends the federal law, arguing that it ensures Hawaii receives a reliable pipeline of goods from the mainland and enhances national security by preserving a domestic fleet. But critics, including many conservatives, blame the law for the state’s high consumer costs.
Davis would offer parents vouchers so their children could choose between public and private schools.
He has called for family-only shelters for the homeless to help protect homeless children, and spent time this year living in a tent in Kakaako to experience homelessness firsthand.
He would significantly expand the state’s public-financing program for political candidates and back term limits for the state House and Senate. He would also suggest some type of government subsidy for the news media to cover more candidates running for office.
"I believe that our problems are a result of special-interest money in our election process," he said. "The government belongs for the people by the people. Unfortunately, of course, we have for the developer by the developer."
Davis would support turning Hawaiian Electric Co. into a cooperative, similar to the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative, because he thinks HECO is a barrier to alternative energy and the quest to get the state off imported oil.
He would legalize marijuana for people 21 and over and would tax and license the sale of the drug like alcohol. He celebrates the medicinal value of marijuana, along with the commercial potential of industrial hemp, and contends that legalization would help reduce the state’s high prison costs.
Davis would label food with genetically modified organisms and would seek to push biotechnology companies that produce seeds — and not edible food — off prime agricultural land through higher taxes.
He supports — unlike Ige and Hannemann — a constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would allow public money to be spent on private preschool, which is central to Abercrombie’s goal to eventually offer preschool to all of the state’s 4-year-olds.
He would not say how he would have handled marriage equality, which was approved in a special session of the Legislature last year and signed into law by Abercrombie.
Davis, who received just 587 votes in the primary, readily accepts that many of his policy ideas are inconsistent with the Libertarian Party’s philosophy of limited government, free markets and property rights. He also accepts that many voters have never heard of him and are skeptical about minor-party candidates.
"Things are so bad in the state of Hawaii that it’s a sad commentary that the guy with no experience in office is the best choice," he said.
