Hawaii’s 86-year-old junior Senator, Dan Akaka, has announced that he won’t seek re-election in 2012:
After months of thinking about my political future, I am announcing today that I have decided not to run for re-election in 2012. As many of you can imagine, it was a very difficult decision for me. However, I feel that the end of this Congress is the right time for me to step aside. It has been a great honor and privilege to serve the people of Hawaii. In 2006, the people of Hawaii gave me an opportunity to continue my service in the United States Senate and I fully intend to serve the last two years of my term in office.
Dan Akaka, in his statement, singles out colleague Dan Inouye for particular thanks; I’ve gotta wonder how much Inouye’s recent comments prodding Akaka to get his butt in gear, fundraising-wise, may have helped clarify things for him, as all signs prior to that had been that Akaka was on track to run for re-election. The questions now are: does this make the race more appealing to ex-Gov. Linda Lingle (the only Republican in the state who could make this a competitive race, although her once-sky-high popularity was starting to dwindle when she left office last year), and who all piles into the once-in-a-lifetime Democratic primary? Rep. Mazie Hirono seems like a likely starting point, although we might also see ex-Rep. Ed Case, who lost an ill-advised 2006 primary against Akaka, re-emerge from the woodwork. Former Honolulu mayor and losing 2010 Dem gubernatorial primary candidate Mufi Hannemann also would be high on the list.
or some scandal plauged dem runs as does linda lingle, this would go down to lean D. otherwise it’s probably likely D now and safe D by 2012 barring an absolute surprise.
She wasn’t really that popular, and Hawaii is so Democratic I don’t think she could really make it. Personally I think the biggest fight will be in the Democratic primary, where progressives need to do everything they can to make sure Ed Case does not win. My greatest fear is that multiple progressive candidates, possibly Hirono and Hanabusa, jump in to the race, split the progressive vote, and allow Case to win the primary.
into making this decision.
Will Inouye make an endorsement I wonder? I’ve read that he sort of supports Case.
With Obama’s coattails there will never be a better time for a Democrat to run in Hawaii than in 2012.
I think that’s the most probable result.
I think any discussion of successors starts with Inouye’s list from the 2/28 DD
http://www.khon2.com/news/loca…
If there’s any year that an open Sen seat in HI would be safe
D, it’s 2012.
If Alvin Greene moves to HI and by some disaster becomes the D candidate, against Lingle, I might consider moving this to “likely D”.
only worry is Case or even worse Hannemann winning the primary. That would be awful. Anyone else would be fine. I like the LG as he is very young and would likely have a very long career. However either reps would be. It will probably be Hirono and that is fine by me. I doubt Hanabusa moves up after one term unless Hirono does not want it.
Safe D without, Likely D with Djou, Lean D with Lingle.
When he scrapped another run at HI-01 out of the blue last year, I speculated that he had worked out a deal with Sen. Inouye, who is basically the George Washington, the Simon Bolivar, and the Vladimir Putin of the Democratic Party of Hawaii, to succeed Sen. Akaka if Akaka retired.
As I expected would be the case (no pun intended) if Case made his case (pun intended) and Inouye said It Was Good, Inouye applied some gentle pressure to nudge Akaka into making this announcement.
And now we see if the field magically clears for a haole whom no one seems to particularly like.
A Republican friend of mine who lives in Hawaii claims Lingle will be declaring shortly and comes armed with 2(!) polls showing her well ahead of the most likely Democrats. I hope he is either misinformed or messing with me.
Fuck-it attitude about district residency and tendency to recycle everybody for every office, are those the same people that would run for Hiorno’s seat, or is there anybody else? (Gosh, that sounds harsh…I like Hawaii…even though I’ve never been.)
He was clearly slipping a bit mentally and physically, but he really is a good-hearted lovable guy. I had the chance to meet him once, and when I went for the handshake, he went for the hug. He’s a good human being in a cesspool of scumbags.
As for replacements, I’ll cast my lot with Hirono. I’d love Brian Schatz, but Hirono’s a solid, reliably liberal figure. I kind of hope that either Lingle or Djou take the plunge because I highly doubt either will win in an Obama year and their credibility will be smashed for good.
At some point do we have to come to terms with her being horrible at this job (Webb, not getting Kaine right away, the other Retirements) or do we generally give the heads of DSCC and DCCC a pass for these kinds of things?
It’s hard to imagine that there have been only two open senate seats in Hawaii’s history. Akaka’s predecessor, Spark Matsunaga, died during incumbency and Akaka was appointed to the seat before winning re-election. The last truly open seat was way back in 1976 when Matsunaga replaced Hiram Fong.
And another piece of interesting trivia: the only senator on non-Asian ancestry in Hawaii’s history was Oren Long, who served way back from 1959-63. And with Hirono a very possible replacement, it may be a while yet before we see another Caucasian. Hawaii really does have a one of a kind politics…
Just throwing this out there: What happens if Senate Minority Leader (/snark) jumps in and his seat flips? Not that it would have much of a practical impact, but the thought of legislature being 100% one party again would be interesting. I think there was a long time that Texas had a monolithically Democratic legislature, but when was the last time that one chamber of a state legislature had NO minority party?
the DCCC should think about recruiting some younger pols. Hanabusa is 59 and she’s the youngest member of the delegation. (Would Hanabusa want to wait until 2016, when she’s 65, to run for Inouye’s seat?) Brian Schatz is the only post-Boomer flavor on Inouye’s candidate menu — Hanneman’s 56, Case is 58, Hirono is 63, Abercrombie is 72 (!) — but would he really ditch LG so quickly? If Abercrombie only serves one term, he’s set up pretty well for governor. If Abercrombie runs again, Schatz would be an obvious candidate for Inouye’s seat in five years.
Is Blake Oshiro too lefty for HI-01? What about a Rep. Maya Soetoro-Ng? Dynastyyyyy? Just kidding?
means Hawaii will not lose its seniority all at once.
Let’s get the LG in there.
http://twitter.com/LarrySabato…
Nothing to see here… carry on…
Is there any merit here? She did go to high school there, and it’d be awesome to have another veteran in Congress.
Couldn’t be a better year for Democrats to hold, and you just shouldn’t still be a Senator at 86.
Hirono would be an excellent choice.
D – 43
I – 36
R – 21
My hunch is Lingle’s most likely scenario is something like…
Lingle – 19/54/94 = 47%
Democrat – 81/46/6 = 53%
For Lingle to win, she needs something more like…
Lingle – 23/57/97 = 51%
Democrat – 77/43/3 = 49%
All of this, against a backdrop of Obama, who’ll probably win with…
Obama – 94/64/16 = 66%
Republican – 6/36/84 = 34%
Hirono will be 64 years old this year, Hanabusa will be 60 years old. I guess that is relatively young by Hawaiian standards. Either one could serve 4 terms in the US Senate (seniority in the Senate still has its perks) and retire at age 84 or 88. It would be nice to see another woman in the US Senate, it is still too white male dominated ( I say this as a white male).
His third place finish in the congressional special election was fairly embarrassing for him. Remember that Hanabusa previously ran for Congress against Case in 2002, and got like 7% to Case’s 50% in a multi-candidate primary.
I would be more worried about Mufi Hannemann trying to get into the Senate, he would be a truly terrible Senator and the state could do much better.
Most of the attention will probably be on Mazie Hirono (who has also beaten Case already), or on Brian Schatz. Although I suppose it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing if Hanabusa ran.
As for Lingle…pfft. She took a massive hit to her popularity in her final two years as governor, pissed off a ton of people with her handling of teacher furloughs, civil unions, and other issues. Add that to the fact that Obama should be winning this state by 50 points again, and you’re looking at a situation where it’s just plain unwinnable by a Republican.