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Editor’s note: This is a response to a recent Civil Beat article, “When Should We Take Candidates Seriously?“

It is a great and honest article about who gets political airtime and coverage, written by someone I respect. But it points out very clearly that the media is making choices… so you don’t have to.

Well, OK, maybe that’s a bit harsh.

A synopsis is that the media often decides who it gives airtime or coverage to, and who it basically ignores. The article justifies those actions somewhat with the logic that “the losing candidates did not end up with any great number of votes anyway” or that the candidates seemed so far off target with their opinions that they should not be taken seriously.

OK, so here is a different perspective.

If the media does not bother to give those candidates any airtime, then is anyone surprised when they only eek out 4 to 10 percent of a vote? You can’t vote for someone you don’t know about and you will not know about them if they do not get any airtime.

The media creates the environment to assist them in losing. It is a sort of pre-screening process. Maybe some are a bit off the edge. But I also do not doubt that the reason they are running is because they are upset with the constant “status quo” of “this is the way we do things” and are very serious about wanting to make some changes.

One candidate referenced the Jones Act, but only got a one-line note. The Jones Act seems to be a somewhat hot topic and people are starting to understand that it is costing us more money. Some commenters are poking fun at candidate Dan Cunningham for wearing gloves or socks on his arms. But its perfectly alright for thousands of others — I’ve mostly seen them on Asian women — to wear them when they are working in the sun all day, riding the bike, working in Chinatown, etc. Is there a reason that he wears them? Does he have a skin condition? Did anyone ever bother to ask? Or is it just easier to make fun of it?

I can tell you one thing for fairly certain. Very few people here in Hawaii have any clue about what the people they are voting for actually stand for. I think I have yet to see any real campaign ads that state clearly what a candidate stands for and their views of things, or what motivates them. But I also have no doubt that the “crazies” will tell you point blank what they think. Is that then the only reason they get labeled “crazies” because all of the others are too clever to tell anyone anything? Not stating firmly what they stand for gives the “popular” candidates the opportunity to be everything to all people. I don’t even think some have a position, just flopping around in the wind or currents and doing whatever is necessary to get re-elected again. OK, maybe that’s a bit harsh too. I know some are working really hard and working incredible hours to do what they think is best.

But, do you think that some of our existing “leaders” would have been elected if they had run campaign ads or TV interviews that went something like these:

Candidate #1) Once I get elected I plan to make sure the state can ignore any and all of its own zoning laws, ignore any and all of its building code and ignore any public input on projects that the state, in its sole discretion, decides will make the most money for us, including just giving land away.

Candidate #2) Once I get elected I plan to create more jobs in the state by quietly killing off all of our small farms and replacing them with mega corporate chemical companies that also happen to genetically engineer and experiment with making “food.” I also plan to make sure they can plant those experimental crops and spray poison at any time they feel like it. And if a few kids get sick, well they are just going to have to understand that’s the cost of doing business in the new age.

Candidate #3) Once I get elected I am going to make it a point to get rid of those homeless people once and for all. I plan to take a sledgehammer and beat their shopping carts into a pile of useless metal and will do it on national TV so that the rest of the country knows they should not be shipping their homeless here.

Candidate #4) Once I get elected, I plan to kill off funding for dozens of non profit organizations and programs for low-income kids, then I am going to get into a really long argument with the teachers union about their pay… even though they are helping get me elected.

If candidates had said those things in interviews before their elections, would they have gotten any airtime? Or would they also have been written off as being out in left field? I am sure I can come up with quite a number of other examples that would have been met with “what the hell are they talking about?” They probably would have gotten themselves labeled as crazies, too.

But I never heard about their plans, positions or perspectives before they got elected.

Maybe we should listen to some of the “crazies” a little? What more harm could it do than some of the existing damage caused by those we’ve already elected?

About the author: Curtis Kropar is the executive director of Hawaiian Hope, a technology-based nonprofit organization.

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