The Democratic Party of Hawaii on Tuesday evening reversed course and agreed to allow state Sen. David Ige, who is challenging Gov. Neil Abercrombie in the primary, to speak at the party’s state convention in May.
Ige — like Abercrombie and seven other top elected officials — will be given five minutes to discuss progress toward the party’s platform in front of delegates at the Sheraton Waikiki.
Ige’s advisers complained to the party last week after learning that he and other candidates would not be able to address delegates from the convention podium. Candidates will be given a separate opportunity to appear at a meet-and-greet event at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.
Ige blamed the snub on Abercrombie, since an aide to the governor’s deputy chief of staff is planning the convention, but party officials have insisted that shortening the convention to two days from 21⁄2 days makes it impossible to allow all candidates to speak.
The party’s executive committee, however, met privately Tuesday evening at party headquarters in Kakaako and decided to grant Ige’s request for speaking time.
"There is a feeling that in this particular case, Ige is a more viable candidate as an opponent of the governor at this point in time," said Dante Carpenter, the party’s chairman.
Carpenter stressed that Ige, Abercrombie and the other elected officials will be expected to report on the party’s platform from the podium, not openly campaign for office.
"I’m pleased that the party agreed to give me an opportunity to speak," Ige said. "It was something that I thought was fair, and it has been the tradition to allow it to happen."
Earlier Tuesday, Abercrombie had sent a letter to Carpenter volunteering to yield some of his time at the convention so other candidates for governor could speak. "In my role as governor, I was asked to address delegates at the Hawaii Democratic Party Convention. Some statewide candidates, however, have made requests to similarly address delegates," the governor said in a statement. "While the Democratic Party makes the final decisions on convention matters, I have offered to yield a portion of my time to all of the Democratic gubernatorial candidates running for office. In doing so, I hope that convention delegates will be able to hear the many diverse voices of the Democratic Party."
Ige responded in a statement that he was "pleased that the governor agreed with my call for fairness and that all statewide Democratic candidates be given the opportunity to speak from the floor of the state Democratic convention and not break from traditions of previous years."
Ige added, "This election is about hearing everyone’s voices, positions and issues, and moving the party and the state forward."
While the party will carve out time for Ige, other candidates will be directed to the meet-and-greet event. On Saturday, Honolulu City Councilman Ikaika Anderson, one of several Democrats in the primary for urban Honolulu’s 1st Congressional District, had joined the Ige campaign’s call that all candidates in major races be allowed to speak to delegates from the podium.
"There was a heavy discussion on if we’re going to allow one, we should allow all," Carpenter said. "And then it gets fairly hectic because we have quite a few candidates, particularly in the CD1 area."
The leading Democratic candidates for governor had been given speaking time at state party conventions in 2010, 2006 and 2002, so Ige and others questioned why the party would break from recent tradition.
In 1998, the last time the party had an incumbent governor who was up for re-election — Ben Cayetano — the party gave then-Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris a speaking role at the state convention. There had been months of speculation that Harris might challenge Cayetano in the primary, but Harris used the convention platform to announce that he would not run and would endorse Cayetano.
Abercrombie has dominated Ige in fundraising and endorsements, but a Hawaii Poll taken in February found Abercrombie with a single-digit lead over Ige despite the fact that many voters did not know enough about Ige to form an opinion of him.
