Now, I may be getting a bit paranoid here, but when I give you the quote, you'll see why.
We (the Summer Starr campaign braintrust), got word that some guy who has a lot of experience in running campaigns in Maui/Hawaii would like to talk to me. No problem. Then I get word that this dude named Lance Holter would be interested in having Summer on his cable access show.
Note: the cable access station here is watched a lot more than in most places and just before I got here was under a huge political tug of war.
Now, this Lance guy, I've actually met once, at a Democratic party function I went to as a suck up move for Summer. My experience there and the few things I've seen in the media, I take him to be the de facto leader of the left-wing of the Maui dems...the left-wing that have liberal values, but roll over every time the corporate wing of the party sabotages anything progressive.
So I contact Lance about Summer going on the show and then HE starts talking about this guy who wants to talk to me. And he mentions how the guy's beat 3 incumbents. Included in this e-mail is a thread of an e-mail conversation he's had with this guy. Check this out:
From: Jay Scharf [mailto:jaysimonscharf@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 9:42 AM
To: Lance Holter
Subject: Campaign management
Professional campaign manager (Presidential on down) in Sacramento in the 1970's. Never lost a primary and knocked off a couple of incumbents.
1979- knocked off 40 year incumbent Art Rutledge from the Hotel Worker's Union
1980's- only did two campaigns before retiring to the Big Island : for Rod Tam when he was a State Rep. and was targeted by both the Democrats and Republicans. and for "Dumb Dr." Duke Bainum when he beat incumbent Rep. Joan Hayes in the Democratic primary. (The asshole still owes me $10,000 ......)
After divorce came out of political retirement and at the last minute saved now Big Island Councilman Bob Jacobson's ass in 2002 with a no-cost telemarketing campaign.
In 04 did now Councilman Pete Hoffman's campaign when he beat 3-term incumbent Leningrad Elarinoff, did now Councilman Angel Pilago's campaign when he beat quasi-incumbent Jim Rath, and took Jacobson from 50.1% to 60% (Jacobson's wife held the seat for 2 terms before he ran-in her 3 campaigns they never got more than 51%.)
Bottom line: I doubt there is anyone else in Hawaii with a track record of beating incumbents, especially in a primary. If your candidates are serious and want to win rather than just go through the motions, they will call me. I'm planning to go to the mainland in July but would be very happy to go to Maui instead if one of you really wants to win. The sooner I know the better.
Uh, OK...so I ask Lance, what is this guy's story...is he looking to get paid? Is he just trying to help candidates he likes? The e-mail is like a hard push advertisement for his services. So I just asked Lance what the deal was. This is Lance's entire reply:
He defeated three incumbents. LH
Uh, OK...At first I was thinking that this guy's got the backing of local dems and he's looking for a gig - and that locals would push to have this guy take over Summer's campaign. And if that's the case she would have to seriously consider it as she'll need to work with them once elected. After a quick Google, it seems that he's running Bob Jacobson's re-election campaign so this probably isn't the case, but it's weird how this guy is being thrust upon us.
But again, I'll talk to the guy.
I really need to stop doing this shit.
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