Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride – from Lilo and Stich (great movie, BTW)
Over at MyDD desmoinesdem refers to the events in the recent Hawaii special election as “political malpractice” which seems a perfect characterization to me.
The blue team had won a slew of consecutive special elections, many of them in places that were difficult or unlikely (remember Dede Scozzafava?). To have the streak snapped in a D+11 district is infuriating.
Basically, the two Democratic candidates split 60% of the vote, allowing the single Republican to make off with the seat despite receiving less than 40%. As if that was aggravating enough, it’s important to remember WHY there was a special election in the first place. Answer: because Neil Abercrombie (the previous holder) vacated the seat in order to run for governor. Why didn’t Mr. Abercrombie simply retire in 2008 if he was going to abandon the seat just 13 months into his term? Good question.
On top of all that, Abercrombie ALSO left his seat in the weeks running up to the final health care vote. You remember that, the vote that was in doubt up until almost literally the day it happened, when Nancy Pelosi performed heroic work trying to whip together enough votes to get things done. Well it turns out that Abercrombie couldn’t even be bothered to stick around long enough to vote for it.
All of which is to say that the Democrats have basically done everything possible to screw things up with this seat. And if Djou (as the new incumbent) does manage to hold onto it in November, it’ll be more or less what they deserve.
Or, to simplify: get your head in the game, people.
Thanks for posting this song! It’s great and so is the movie.