QUICK:  Who will replace the Hawaii Republican Party's Ultra-Scandalous Congressional Candidate ???


Aloha Republicans:

OMG, what can you say about 2016 GOP congressional candidate Aulani Kaaihue (real name Angela Sue Stenger-Hemphill) which hasn't been said breathlessly on the news during the past 72 hours???  Not since Fritz Rohlfing's enthusiastic embrace of corrupt Democrat Rod Tam (not disavowed, but embraced) earlier this year to be the Hawaii GOP's star candidate for the state senate has a 2016 candidate caused so much controversy . . . and that's being nice about it.

But while the past couple of days of TV, radio, newspaper, and internet coverage have revealed the apparent racism, the abject offensiveness, the political disloyalty, the extremely lousy judgment and much more from Ms. Kaaihue, several massive questions remain unanswered:
 
(1)   Did procrastinator Fritz Rohlfing speak out much too late for the current party chair to get ahead of and get a handle on this explosive situation; a poorly-handled mess which has been boiling over on social media and elsewhere for almost a year thanks to fecklessness, indecisiveness and weakness by party leaders?
 
(2)   And WHO, if Aulani Kaaihue should abandon her candidacy in the wake of this devastatingly embarrassing scandal, should take her place on the ballot?  Should it be the second place finishing Republican who also ran for that seat in last weekend's Primary Election?
 
HIRA has the answer to BOTH questions.  No.  And yes.  Yes, it's time to start thinking about another Republican to take Kaaihue's place on the ballot.  In a year that anything can happen, these impossible things seem to be happening.  But, the closer you look, the sooner you conclude that the party's top officers and candidate recruiters didn't care at all about the quality, background, or ideologies of those they plucked from obscurity (mostly) to represent the GOP in 2016.  They were just desperately filling empty slots on this year's ballots after so few stepped forward voluntarily to take on the challenge of running at all.  [Can you blame them since the party just throws them to the wolves anyway?]

Okay, you know plenty about the 1st place finisher in last weekend's primary (though we share more shocking details below).  Let's quickly take a look at the 2nd place "Republican" representing the party of Miriam Hellreich, Fritz Rohlfing's and the Hawaii GOP's vice chair for candidate recruitment Barbara Marumoto:  Candidate ERIC HAFNER.


While Kaaihue slightly edged 'none of the above' (or the 32% of blank votes), Hafner was beaten by those who didn't vote for either candidate.  Still, he got 30% of the vote to Kaaihue's 38% of the vote.

So who is Eric Hafner?  And is he the best person to replace Aulani Kaaihue on the General Election ballot.  First off, let's just agree to forget for a moment that he wasted no time after losing last Saturday's Primary Election jumping ship and
switching to another party :  the pro-sovereignty, anti-'overthrow' Aloha Aina Party, where Hafner's campaign website now directs visitors.  Yes, Hafner is already so disgusted with the decline of the Hawaii GOP and non-support for candidates from leaders like Rohlfing that he has switched parties.  But put that aside for now.  Let's find out what he stands for.
 
WARNING :  Belatedly getting to know our party's "Republican" candidate for congress Reverend Doctor Eric Hafner is a whole lot like the shock you experience when belatedly finding out the troubling realities of Aulani Kaaihue that the GOP should have known in the first place.  Unavoidably, the first thing you wonder is "Don't those morons down at our party's headquarters even vet these candidates who run on the GOP brand?"  At first glance (and at second glance), Hafner is definitely from the far-left Bernie Sanders wing of the Democrat-Socialist progressive brigade .

The 25-year-old anti-July 4th transplant to Hawaii from New Jersey has already become a "Hawaiian Nationalist" and wants to force the USA out of Hawaii (so, by subtraction, there'd only be 49 states in the union) because America has been "oppressing" and "manipulating" Hawaii with the same "imperialism" and "colonialism" that the United States brings to the Middle East and elsewhere.  He claims to have been appointed a "medical cannabis policy adviser" somewhere in New Jersey.  Hafner believes that Osama Bin Laden was a CIA agent, that the USA is a bunch of "war criminals" and that "the CIA and NSA secretly control our government."


Republican Hafner wants "free universal health care" including "medication free of charge".  Hafner doesn't explain how so many things can be "free", but it sure sounds like he wants Republicans to pay for Democrats to get free stuff.  Last but not least, Hafner declares that "the War on Drugs is racist" and that, "If elected, I will give away free Hawaiian cannabis to anyone visiting my office. Hawaii should have a monopoly on growing federally legal cannabis for sale in the U.S." 
Not wanting to be misunderstood, Hafner adds :  "Yes, I support the full legalization of cannabis. Full legalization would mean that anyone could possess, grow, distribute, or sell as much as they'd like."  No wonder the Hawaii Cannabis Organization was so excited about Hafner's candidacy.
 
HIRA isn't sure how all of this escaped the notice of Marumoto, Hellreich, and Rohlfing .  After all, like Kaaihue, Hefner was running for the United States House of Representatives from Hawaii as a Republican.  Perhaps the first warning sign they missed was that Hefner lists his place of birth this way:  "Lenapehoking (referred to by the colonial occupiers as New Jersey)."  That should have been a dead giveaway that Mr. Hefner walked into the wrong party headquarters several months ago.  But he did finish a close 2nd to Ms. Kaaihue.  That means if Republicans don't register their objections right away, Rohlfing might unilaterally stick Hefner on the ballot to replace Kaaihue, NO QUESTIONS ASKED (esp. since Rohlfing and company didn't ask any questions the first time around).
 
When Rohlfing belatedly proclaimed over the weekend about Primary Election WINNER Kaaihue -- "I unconditionally denounce her despicable statements. I strongly urge all Hawaii Republicans to join me in disavowing her candidacy" -- one wonders WHY Rohlfing waited for more than six months to do so.  The writing has been on the wall (literally his candidate's Facebook wall) for ages.

Long before he disavowed Kaaihue , Rohlfing decided to prevent the State Committee of the Hawaii GOP from doing so.  In fact, more than two months ago (on June 14th), a party official named Jack James (the same Jack James who led the coverup of Rohlfing's theft of party funds to hire a lawyer to sue HIRA while managing the campaign of Jaci Agustin) desperately wrote to party leaders asking them to add the "termination" of Kaaihue's GOP membership to the state committee's meeting agenda"As a member in good standing of the Republican Party of Hawaii I request that the State Committee in accordance with HRP Rules Section 107: Termination, move to terminate the membership of Aulani Kaaihue."  Rohlfing completely IGNORED his request.  No meeting ever got scheduled.  No agenda ever added the termination.
 
While Rohlfing probably hopes his weekend 'denunciation' of Kaaihue gives him 'the illusion' of being a strong, decisive leader, the stark reality is that Rohlfing prevented the state committee from acting on this crisis more than two months ago.  And Kaaihue was the candidate whom Rohlfing protected from denunciation for six long months during a half-year period in which her statements were just as offensive and racist and obnoxious from beginning to end.
 
BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT :  If party leaders weren't protecting Kaaihue all that time, then Rohlfing, Hellreich and Obamacare-cheerleader Barbara Marumoto were failing to read (and failing to respond to) the warning signs for what is known in both politics and in real life as a very, very, very long time.  Every possible sign was ignored that this candidate needed to be watched closely and probably kept from running as a Republican.
 
NEGLECT GALORE :   Not only have Rohlfing, Hellreich and Marumoto neglectfully kicked the can down the road with the latest kickoff imaginable (to this day, still no start) promoting local candidates and putting Democrats and their abysmal record on defense, but they've completely ignored the need to deal with ticking time bombs like these.

Clearly, with Kaaihue posting hideous messages since February, Fritz Rohlfing's 'denunciation' is pretty insincere.  Rohlfing only got forced into action when a reporter put him on the spot by shoving a microphone in Fritz's face a couple of days ago and he got caught with his pants down.  He didn't even put together his "denunciation press release" and recent e-blast to party members until the deer in the headlights expression was fully formed on his face.  That's NOT leadership.
 
QUESTION:  Where are Rohlfing's other 'denunciations'??   Rather than praising and recruiting Rod Tam, whose illegal and immoral actions should NOT represent the best of the Republican party, let's hear Rohlfing's denunciation of Tam.  How about denouncing Richard Fale, the disgraced GOP legislator whom Rohlfing put in charge of the recent 2016 state GOP convention in Waipahu knowing that the Attorney General was on the verge of convicting Fale of purposely falsifying finance reports to the Campaign Spending Commission.  Or how about denouncing GOP state legislator Lauren Cheape, who votes with her Democrat colleagues more than Democrats even vote with the Democrats.  VOTERS KNOW SELECTIVE ENFORCEMENT -- AND SELECTIVE OUTRAGE -- WHEN THEY SEE IT.
 
Thanks to the Hawaii GOP's infamous neutral platform known as LLIFE, Republicans are granted the latitude to call themselves "Republican" even when their views are lifted right from the liberal Democrat playbook.  That's what inspires fake Republicans like Cheape and Beth Fukumoto to vote with Democrats over and over again while Fukumoto gets booed off the stage at our party's aforementioned state convention just three months ago.
 
Ironically, Fritz's "press release" of denunciation is the most Hawaii's GOP has said about any issue facing the people of Hawaii in the two years since the 2014 election.  Ask around and you'll see that 2016 is shaping up to be a disaster of Rod Tam proportions.  And if Democrat Stanley Chang beats Sam Slom (leaving the State Senate with ZERO Republicans - a first in the nation debacle with a GOP-free chamber), then expect the party of Beth Fukumoto and Miriam Hellreich to quickly implode into the abyss.
 
Clearly, the entire leadership of the Hawaii GOP needs to resign so we can salvage 2016 and get an early start on 2018.
 
**** Stay tuned for HIRA's upcoming newsletter showcasing the DIVERSITY of the candidates assembled by Marumoto and Rohlfing to represent our "big tent" Hawaii GOP on the 2016 ballot.  HIRA has received LOTS of encouragement from across the state to help shine a light on our party's diverse candidates and their diversity of political views.  Believe it or not, what we stand for matters.  STAY TUNED ****
 
Until then, below is just a tiny percentage of available examples of what 2016 Republican candidate (and GOP Primary Election WINNER) Kaaihue has been posting -- and what Rohlfing, Hellreich and Marumoto have been ignoring -- starting six months agoSCROLL DOWN AND DECIDE FOR YOURSELF IF FRITZ ROHLFING AND HIS RINO LEADERSHIP TEAM WERE INCOMPETENT TO IGNORE THIS EXTREMELY EMBARRASSING PROBLEM FOR THE HAWAII GOP AND ITS CANDIDATES FOR SIX LONG AND PAINFUL MONTHS . . .


FEBRUARY 2016 (six months ago):




MARCH 2016 (five months ago):





APRIL 2016 (four months ago):





MAY 2016 (three months ago) 
same month as state convention:




JUNE 2016 (two months ago):





JULY 2016 (one month ago):





AUGUST 2016 (finally - after six months of ignoring the problems):




***** ACTION BY PARTY LEADERS CAME MUCH TOO LATE
TO PREVENT THE POLITICALLY HARMFUL FALLOUT *****

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HAWAII REPUBLICAN ASSEMBLY (HIRA)

The Hawaii Republican Assembly (HIRA), an affiliated chapter of 
is the conservative standard-bearer of the Republican Party of Hawaii 
and the leading advocate for conservative solutions in the islands. 

We are not an official arm of the Republican Party of Hawaii (RPH). 
We are the conservative base of the Republican Party. 
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