������Ƶ

During election night last week, I asked Diamond Garcia, the Republican candidate in Hawaii House District 42, why he chose to run again this time after losing last time.

He had no problem answering. Because the Democrats have done so much damage and Republicans can make things better, he said.

He is raring to go, and it turns out that Diamond is running in a district where he has a chance because of Democratic incumbent Sharon Har’s past legal troubles.

Most of the remaining GOP candidates from top to bottom have no chance.

Come the general election in November, the odds are tremendous against Hawaii Republican major candidates.

According to , the odds of Duke Aiona winning are about 100-1, with Josh Green projected to get 60% of the vote.

In his 2010 governor’s race against Neil Abercrombie, Aiona got only 41% of the vote. In 2014, against David Ige, Aiona just made 40%.

The chances are probably not that much better for most of the Republican candidates for the Legislature.

Why do Republicans run if they are certain to lose? Under those circumstances, why put in all the work, money, time and sweat when the light at the end of the tunnel is not at the end of the tunnel at all?

I don’t mean this question to be rhetorical or sarcastic. It’s a serious question.

A Hawaii Republican Party chair once told me that the real challenge is to get a candidate for the Legislature to run a second time after he or she lost the first time because once is almost never enough, but more than once takes a real toll.

In Civil Beat columnist Danny de Gracia’s terms, there are too many Republicans who are in it for a season and not enough Republicans in it for a reason.

So why run?

Because you don’t accept the premise that you have no chance. You believe that what you offer the voters is so powerful that you can overcome the numbers. You just need to fight harder to remind people how much they have suffered under all these years of Democratic rule.

Because it’s a new day. The past is the past. We are starting fresh.

I’m sympathetic. These are very human reasons that aren’t all that different from what motivates the rest of us to get out of our cocoons and take risks.

These optimistic views may get a candidate into the fray, but they minimize the power of history, the habits of preference and for that matter basic arithmetic.

Elections do not start fresh.

Take de Gracia’s recent column, for instance. It’s a powerful statement about why people should vote Republican and what candidates need to do to make this happen.

It’s far better than the pap about corruption, change and the need for a two-party system that comes out of the mouths of Republicans.

The column is not about stopping the steal, minimizing the insurrection, or any other slavish Trump love. And he’s right about his implications that the big shots in the state’s GOP are stale as month-old bread and silent as cloistered nuns.

But it’s a half-time pep talk, a good locker room motivator that is about being in the moment. It ignores the fact that your opponent is bigger, faster and stronger, and a consistent winner. And your team, a three-touchdown underdog, is already losing by three touchdowns. And your opponent had been awarded two touchdowns even before the game began.

There is motivation, and then there is a context so formidable and unchanging that motivation and hard work just aren’t enough.

Start with simple math. Republicans here are a minority party big-time. That means either converting many voters who normally vote Democratic or mobilizing people who seldom if ever vote.

Whatever people say, though, about not identifying with either party, when it comes to voting, most stick to one party or the other. This party identification has gotten even harder to change because nowadays so much of it is based on hate and distrust of the opposing party.

No doubt many Republicans here share the things that typically motivate Republicans in other states — Trump, “stop the steal,” active social conservatism, opposition to abortion, seething anger.

Duke is a Linda Lingle guy in a Ron DeSantis world.

For our state Republican candidates, there are two problems with this approach. One is that the local GOP candidates don’t do this and really can’t do this.

Duke Aiona, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, rejoins a long line of GOP candidates who don’t talk in these terms.

They are nice Republicans, with a style that seems consistent with the idea that politically Hawaii is a special place.

And they lose almost every time.

Even if they wanted to become more like mainland Republicans, the present top-of-the-ticket candidates, Aiona for example, do not have the attitude, skills or inclination to play hardball this way.

Duke is a Linda Lingle guy in a Ron DeSantis world. The conventional belief is something like, “Good. Heaven forbid Hawaii’s GOP becomes like Florida’s.”

Hawaii is too moderate and too nice for a nastier approach? OK, then, what should the party advocate instead?

If not more Ron DeSantis, then more moderation? Many people, including most pundits most of the time, say the Republicans here need to be even more centrist.

Why?

Never mind that partisans don’t easily change their basic beliefs (do you?) — this moderation has not worked for the party since, well, forever.

Consequently, for Hawaii Republican candidates, it’s a tightrope impossible to walk without falling off in one direction or the other.

What comes out is a lot about Democratic bungling and corruption, a little about too many mandates, a cautious anti-abortion view along with the understanding that you have no plans to lead an attack against Hawaii’s permissive abortion laws, talking about the need for change and corruption.

And never mentioning Mr. Trump. Ever.

Last week’s primary showed that the party is going to be of no help overcoming these obstacles. Think of three wings of the local GOP. Heidi Tsuneyoshi represented the more or less traditional conservative branch. She did not even get 10% of the votes.

BJ Penn, who had the potential of mobilizing the more populist wing, ended up running the quietest, politest populist campaign in America. Populists are no doubt out there in Hawaii somewhere, but as far as party-building is concerned, there is no there there.

Penn the lion turned out to be a lamb, or more accurately, the poor little lamb that lost his way. He turned nice.

Imagine the GOP plight if Aiona hadn’t run.

There are no potential Republican candidates on the horizon because there is no horizon.

��ǰ����𳦳پ��Dz�:��An earlier version of this story said that Sen. Brian Schatz recently recounted losing his first race for political office. Rep Ed Case told the story.

At last Sunday’s Democratic Party unity breakfast, which was even more upbeat than usual and why not, Rep. Ed Case recounted how he badly lost in his first try for political office.

Right after that race, Brian Taniguchi, the guy who beat him, congratulated Case for running a good campaign. And, as Case tells it, he told him he had a great political future.

In human terms, the essence of the Hawaii’s GOP problem is that a Democrat who loses an election has a bright political future. A Republican who loses has none.