Education K-12

He’s caring and courageous, taking on the political establishment to put working families first, fighting irresponsible spending that threatens our keiki’s future, creating new local jobs by opening overseas markets so Hawaii families can stay here together.

A poll released by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and Hawaii News Now shows Colleen Hanabusa in trouble. Across the board, she is struggling not only to make inroads with independent voters and younger voters but also struggling to seal the deal with her own party and union members.

HONOLULU – Governor Linda Lingle has released $140 million to the University of Hawai‘i for the construction of the new University of Hawai‘i Cancer Center. The funds were released as preparations get underway for breaking ground on the new state-of-the-art facility on Thursday, Oct. 28. 

The telephone survey, conducted by ccAdvertising, showed Charles leading Hanabusa 44% to 35%, with a margin of error of +/-3%. The survey had 2,747 participants.

Groups and individuals backing Democrat Rep Neil Abercrombie for Governor and Democrat State Senator Colleen Hanabusa for Congress are holding a “Use Your Voice, Use Your Vote” rally on the University of Hawaii Manoa campus Tuesday.  The event is being promoted with UH resources including an official UH Manoa news release. 

Hawaii Revised Statutes Chapter 84 clearly prohibits “using state time, equipment, supplies, or state premises for campaign activities or campaign purposes.”  Use of state computers and email accounts is specifically prohibited.

According to the non-partisan Tax Foundation, the tax burden for the average working family in Hawaii’s First Congressional District where Charles Djou lives would be $1,784 higher if tax rates are allowed to increase at the close of this year—if Congress does nothing, as it is currently poised to do.

Hawaii's first congressional district, former home to President Barack Obama, longtime Democratic district, but the GOP has a great shot at keeping this seat. Why? Well – a couple reasons: foremost being that this year seems to be the year where the impossible becomes possible in Hawaii politics: a Republican, Charles Djou, won the special election for former Democratic Rep. Neil Abercrombie's seat and now, when Democrat Colleen Hanabusa is trying to take it back, Djou is well-positioned to keep the seat.

The Hawaii Republican Party has released its endorsements and recommendations for non-partisan County Council and Mayor races, County-level charter initiatives, and the two proposed Amendments to the State Constitution.

Two weeks ago the Hill released a poll in which Djou led his once and current opponent, Hanabusa, 45 to 41 percent — within a margin of error of 4.9 percent. The poll also found 61 percent of respondents had a favorable opinion of the congressman, while 56 percent did of his adversary. Fortune, it seems, is smiling on Djou.

Hanabusa believes that more government is the answer to every problem, even though the massive stimulus and government expansion into virtually every sector of our economy have failed.

"As if the lies from mainland special interests weren't enough, the local establishment has launched a smear campaign of its own. The group, called 'Working Family for Hawaii,' is really the Hawaii Government Employees Union, which is apparently too ashamed of its false ads to run them under its own name."

HONOLULU-- In her recent ad, Colleen Hanabusa boasts that she would have voted for the $26 billion state bailout bill that put Hawaii taxpayers on the hook for bailing out fiscally irresponsible state and municipal governments.

More arrogance from the nation's only molester-employing Legislator.

“Inouye backed Colleen Hanabusa in May’s special election for Hawaii’s first congressional district.  She came in second place and is still defying political analysts who believed the seat was a safe Democrat seat by polling behind Republican Charles Djou in recent polls.  Inouye also backed Mufi Hannemann for governor and Kirk Caldwell for mayor, both of whom lost their election."

This is the first American Crossroads independent expenditure campaign ad.

"Tonight she was unable to articulate anything the Congress had done in the past year that she would have voted against, she was unable to describe how she would encourage job creation and she continued to tout the success of the so-called 'stimulus' bill which has failed by the very standard its proponents set. The people of Hawaii deserve independent, fiscally responsible leadership, not a rubber stamp."

UK Daily Mail, National Journal, Atlanta Journal Constitution, MSNBC First Read, Washington Examiner, The Hill, Daily KOS . . . .   

When Honolulu County Council member Andy Mirikitani faced trial in 2001 for fraud, theft, extortion, and bribery, key testimony against him came from Cynthia McMillan, the wife of now-State Representative Karl Rhoads (D-Downtown Honolulu).  McMillan had worked closely with Mirikitani, at one time chairing his campaign committee.  Prior to presenting her testimony--in which McMillan implicated her husband--her attorney negotiated an immunity agreement with federal prosecutors. 

The Milken Institute rankings of 200 largest US metro areas shows that Honolulu has risen from 100th to 55th overall in the combined rankings based on eight measures of job growth used by Milken.  The brightest spot for Honolulu is its ranking of 30th in “short term job growth” comparing employment numbers for April 2009 with April 2010. 

The Taxpayer’s Perspective highlights two ballot measures in Hawaii, including a statewide measure that would give the legislature discretion to use property tax rebates intended for taxpayers and a local measure in Oahu that would create a transit authority to oversee a rail project.

"I do not believe the future of our economy is going to come from a bureaucrat," Djou said. "The future of our economy is going to come from an individual, an individual American who takes a chance, goes into the marketplace and creates a job."

Wall Street Journal, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Hill

The Democratic Governors Association is fighting back with a new ad framing a vote for Mr. Aiona as a vote against President Obama. The ad quotes Mr. Aiona himself saying electing a GOP governor would be a "knock-out punch" against Hawaii's favorite son in the White House.

However, this may not be a risk-free strategy for Democrats. The Republican Governors Association has its own ad up that gently chides Mr. Abercrombie for being out-of-touch with the state. The ad doesn't clobber Mr. Obama, but says: "Maybe people in Washington don't care how you handle the federal budget -- by printing money, raising taxes, and increasing the deficit -- but in Hawaii, we do care."

In her own words, Colleen Hanabusa said in one of her recent advertisements that she is the kind of politician that, “What you see is what you’ll get.” Since she asked for it, let’s take a look at her record…

Attacks by the White House and the Democratic National Committee on outside groups like Crossroads and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Collegio said, have helped energize their base and bring in more donations.

The first eight races in which Crossroads will run ads include two for incumbents — Dan Lungren in  California’s Third Congressional District and Charles Djou in Hawaii’s First Congressional District.

Hawaii Rep. Charles Djou may be getting the biggest prize: Boehner said Djou will get a seat on the Appropriations Committee if he wins re-election next month after winning the special election in May to replace Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D). Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye (D) chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, so the appointment would give the island state an outsized influence on Appropriations.

New numbers out Wednesday from The Hill's midterm poll give Djou a four-point lead over Democrat Colleen Hanabusa, despite an Obama endorsement for the Democratic nominee. Djou leads 45 percent to 41, with 12 percent of likely voters undecided. 

The poll, conducted for The Hill by Penn Schoen Berland, surveyed 406 likely voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

To make matters even worse for Democrat candidates like Hanabusa, President Obama recently admitted in an interview that he realized too late that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects,” confirming once and for all that the stimulus was a policy disaster. After leaving small businesses and hard-working families to suffer from Washington’s egregious miscalculations – how can Hanabusa possibly defend the failed trillion-dollar stimulus now?

Never has there been a more gross example of the nation's heritage being mismanaged than at the Ewa Field battlefield, where US Marines died in defense of their country on a December 7 Sunday morning, where Navy Region Hawaii allowed this hallowed ground to became a totally forgotten GARBAGE DUMP - until Save Ewa Field brought this gross mismanagement to local and national attention.

The April 26 Denver Post agrees:

Exhibiting quite a lot of gall, General Motors is trying to spin the public with an ad campaign launched last week based on breathtakingly misleading information.

Djou, a Captain in the U.S. Army Reserve, represents the First Congressional District, which is home to the U.S. Pacific Command, the U.S. Army Pacific, the U.S. Pacific Fleet, the U.S. Pacific Air Force, Pearl Harbor, Camp H.M. Smith, Fort Shafter and Tripler Army Medical Center. Ensuring that these bases and military installations have adequate funding is in the best interest of Hawaii and the United States.

"The fact is Colleen Hanabusa's handlers on the mainland have decided to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to lie about Charles' record and district voters from her own troubling record," said Dylan Nonaka, Hawaii Republican Party Executive Director.

"In this difficult economy, the last thing voters in Hawaii's first Congressional district want is a politician who has voted for just about every tax increase and government regulation imaginable, killing local jobs and paying off her union cronies."

Democrats and the AFL-CIO have been flooding the airwaves and the mailboxes with debunked claims labeled “false” by FactCheck.org and mocked by the Washington Post.  The leftist KOS poll and the Democrat poll would make up a polling trend which indicates that these Democrat lies are working.  But neither poll is independent, so it is impossible to know whether these poll numbers are merely atmospherics to go along with the barrage of lies.

HONOLULU – More than 2,000 grassroots supporters today joined Duke Aiona and Lynn Finnegan and their families for a pa‘ina in the park at Bishop Museum. Prior to the event, more than 400 supporters lined School Street and Likelike Highway to sign wave for the event.

Honolulu, HI — Congressman Charles K. Djou (HI-01) was joined by local Cub Scouts and volunteers at Mililani Waena Elementary School today to participate in the Hawaii Jaycees’ Third Annual “Adopt-A-School” Day, an annual day of statewide service to our local schools.

Despite all the negative ads saying Charles Djou voted against funding for schools, we know that actually no Hawaii schools were ever in danger of closing, nor were any teacher jobs at risk. Consider the following from the Washington Post's editorial board. They call this bailout for states a "boondoggle" and that "With schools in session, it's even clearer now than it was then that the numbers were exaggerated and that the measure was in no small part intended to motivate the powerful teachers unions for this fall's midterm elections."

• WHO: Congressman Charles Djou and Honolulu Chinese Jaycees
• WHAT: Adopt-A-School Day at Mililani Waena Elementary School
• WHEN: Sunday, October 10, 2010, beginning at 9:00 AM
• WHERE: Mililani Waena Elementary School 

... it was said that it was the first time anyone had been denied a chance to fill a vacancy on the Manoa Neighborhood Board. Zach Thomson a businessman, active civic leader, founder of the non-profit Lucent Film Academy, Eagle Scout and Active Boy Scout Den Leader, who is a husband and father that lives with his wife and child in the Manoa community was denied ....

...she claimed that the Hawaii Republican Party's gesture of support and goodwill was simply a 'stunt'....

WaPo: Below you'll find our rankings of the 50 House races most likely to switch parties in the fall....

Washington- After months of rubber-stamping reckless spending and job-killing legislation, reality finally caught up with Hawaii Democrat Colleen Hanabusa and her Washington friends. The final jobs report before Election Day showed another month of high unemployment at 9.6 percent, marking it almost a year and a half since unemployment has been under nine percent, signaling major problems for any Democrat on the ballot in November.

HONLULU—The Hawaii Republican Party stopped by Colleen Hanabusa’s headquarters this afternoon with moving boxes fresh off her statement and our video released yesterday indicating she would be moving into Hawaii’s First Congressional District.

Charles Djou's stay on Capitol Hill was supposed to be brief....

...police reported the car was registered to my opponent, Rep. Jessica Wooley, and her husband. When police called her, she did not deny her car was there and said it must have been a volunteer, but that she didn't know who it was.  She also claimed to have only taken the signs down and left them in front of the house, but as we reported, the signs were stolen and thrown into her van.  Someone mysteriously returned signs at the place they were stolen with a note saying the property caretakers didn't want the signs up.  But these were not the same signs stolen from the property and we confirmed with the property caretakers that they indeed supported our campaign and wanted a sign in their home.

“Congressman Djou understands the importance of small business in restoring the nation’s economy,” she said, noting his willingness to fight growing federal regulations and stand firm against anti-business measures such as big labor’s “card check” legislation that would unfairly deny small businesses and their workers the right to secret ballot elections when faced with union-organizing campaigns."