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I received an email from Keith Amemiya on Tuesday.

“I’m running for Lt. Governor to end corruption in our government,” he wrote, asking for money. “I have never worked in the Capitol, and I don’t take bribes from lobbyists. I am an independent outsider with a record of integrity.”

It was very similar to the email from Amemiya that I received on Feb. 26. “I am disturbed to see the news of corruption — or even the perception of corruption — in our Capitol,” he wrote.

And 10 days before that Amemiya sent me an email, too. Not a politician, he said. Didn’t work in Capitol. Never took bribes.

Amemiya is doing his best to get out ahead on what is turning out to be a major theme in this year’s elections: government corruption. For that we can thank investigators who have recently collared, on a range of charges, two former state legislators, three former Honolulu officials and five employees from one city agency.

Amemiya is not alone in his quest. One of his lieutenant governor opponents, Jill Tokuda, has also lifted her finger to the political headwinds, saying in a Feb. 18 email, “The undue influence that money has in our political system can lead to corruption and when it does, we all lose.”

And when he made his run for governor official earlier this month, Lt. Gov. Josh Green , “I’m running because we need leaders we can trust and who care about people.”

The problem that Green, Tokuda and Amemiya have, however, is that they are members of the Democratic Party of Hawaii, which controls the Capitol and most of the governance in the state and four counties.

And malfeasance is a concern at the federal level, too, where three of Hawaii’s four members in the U.S. Congress up for reelection this year are — finally! — speaking out loud and repeatedly about the Red Hill fuel leaks. At least one GOP challenger to Sen. Brian Schatz — Ewa Beach lawmaker Bob McDermott — has made Red Hill his primary campaign issue.

But Republicans believe there are other matters at play that could help their party. Sensing blood in the waters, top GOP leaders and candidates gathered Tuesday at the Capitol Rotunda.

State party chair Lynn Finnegan, herself a former House minority leader and former GOP candidate for LG, said, “There are three reasons why we need to vote Democrats out of office, and that’s corruption, hypocrisy and deafness.”

Finnegan called out by name the disgraced former lawmakers J. Kalani English and Ty Cullen. But she also accused “certain elected officials” who go without masks in indoor gatherings while mandating masks to be worn by the rest of the people of Hawaii.

Finally, she said the governor and county mayors, as seen through their government edicts regarding Covid-19 restrictions, have not been listening to the “voices of people.”

The solution to the three-pronged problem, said Finnegan, is checks and balances.

“Hawaii, we deserve better,” she concluded. “There is no better time than now to turn things around.”

Behind Finnegan stood more than a dozen candidates for various offices including Honolulu City Councilwoman Heidi Tsuneyoshi and three other candidates for governor: fighter BJ Penn, business consultant Paul Morgan and retired veteran Lynn Mariano. Gary Cordery of the Aloha Freedom Coalition is expected to formally announce his campaign for the job on Saturday.

Perhaps coincidentally — perhaps not? —�� the GOP press conference was held the same day as President Joe Biden was to deliver his State of the Union address. Later in the afternoon, Gov. David Ige announced the end to the Safe Travels program this month and that state and county employees will no longer be subject to the vaccine-or-test requirements. But the indoor mask mandate remains for now.

And the news broke this week that Hawaii Democrats may kick Tulsi Gabbard out of the party for daring to speak to Republicans in Florida over the weekend.

The 2022 election also represents the first in 10 years in which some district boundaries have been changed, a process that is held up in the courts at present.

“Fifty-one state House seats, 25 state Senate seats are all up for grabs,” Finnegan observed. “Today we are sounding a clear and clarion call as we launch our Stand for Hawaii Victory 2022 campaign.”

Will it work?

Keep in mind that GOP candidates typically get around 30% of the vote in local races. We may be an ocean blue state, but there are strong rivers of red flowing all around.

I asked Finnegan where her party stood on Donald Trump’s stubborn and bogus stance that the 2020 presidential election was illegitimate.

“I think right now what we’re focused on is winning this election here locally in Hawaii,” she replied. “What matters now is that the people of Hawaii have been handcuffed from their everyday business and it’s hurting people. So what I’d like to focus on today is local issues and what we are here for, which is to elect Republicans here in Hawaii for the betterment of our next generation.”

Finnegan added that the party had not specifically discussed Trump and that the former president has many supporters here.

“And I think that’s OK because across the nation, 63% of people polled have shown that if Trump were in office today, this would not be happening in Russia,” she said, referring to the invasion of Ukraine.

Finnegan also acknowledged that “election integrity” is a concern, however, and said that the GOP was working with the State Elections Office to ensure that the balloting process would work well.