Welcome to the dead-in-the-water election.
This campaign season is the ghost ship of issues, candidates and public participation.
Today it is maneuvering through the fog of Labor Day political announcements and will then come looming out of the mists in late October before arriving on its Nov. 8 general election day.
Sure, the Republican Party’s candidate for president is providing some interest, but it is the “slow down to look at a car wreck” kind of interest.
Yes, we bottomed out our all-time lousy record for voter turnout in the primary election with just 34.8 percent of registered voters.
But who cares this year? As one veteran Democrat said, “We just seem to have secondary issues to discuss.”
This week’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser revealed lots of primary issues: Queen’s Medical Center handled homeless patients 10,126 times in 2015, resulting in gross charges of $89.3 million, at the same time the top spot for food for the poor, Feeding Hawaii Together, which delivers 3 million pounds of free food to more than 53,000 households, is on the verge of closing in December.
If someone has a better way of doing it, they aren’t hollering to the voters, “Put me in, coach!”
There are 51 members of the state House, but there are just 30 contested general election House races, because the other 21 either have no opponent, or the candidate won in the primary.
There are nine state Senate races, but in four of them, the Democrat is battling a Libertarian, not a Republican.
If there has ever been a “ride into the valley of death” politician, who didn’t flinch running campaigns of overwhelming odds, it has been the Hawaii Libertarians’ longtime chairwoman, Tracy Ryan.
There is interest because their presidential candidate, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, is polling well because of the voter dislike for both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
“Yes, there is increased interest,” Ryan said in an interview. “With Johnson polling between 8 and 10 percent in Hawaii, there are a lot more folks looking into the party itself.”
But this election year, even Ryan is tamping it down.
“Having candidates in the race and having competitive campaigns are two different things,” said Ryan when I asked about having a total of 12 Libertarian candidates running in the fall election.
“It is tough this year; there are some candidates who want to do something and some who don’t want to do much at all.”
She added that this year, it just seems like voters don’t want to listen.
“We did phone banking and people are just hanging up. People seem to be much less trusting. In the past, people sure seemed a lot more willing to listen,” Ryan said.
In this election year of little hopes and dreams, it is probably better to just move on. There’s nothing to see here.
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.
