Aloha East Hawaii County Republicans !
First, let us not forget our brothers and sisters in Maui, our love and prayers go out to them, please help whatever you can.
Hawaii State GOP sitrep:
Uhhelpful rumor and gossip and infighting is fed by a lack of transparency, which I will help to end.
As you know, our state organization has been going through turmoil recently, with the election and then resignation of one chair, Tim Dahlhaus (due to spying and treachery inside the executive committee), and then HRP chair succession and resignation of Lohi Goodwin. And then he resigned from the GOP as well, in disgust.
Clearly, there is great dysfunction in our GOP executive committee, our leadership members there.
We have now had 6 (!) state chair changes in the last 6 months. There is also a significant financial problem, mostly compounded by the financial drag of the party headquarters condo unit in Honolulu.
The first step to a better unified functional & effective party is the election of a new state chair, followed by ethical and committed leadership out of the dysfunction and financial difficulties.
This new state chair election will happen by the vote of the State Committee of the party, according to our bylaws, and not by convention delegates, on this Saturday, 9 September.
The current (and daily varying) list of HRP Chair candidates is:
Sheila Walker, Michael Jouch, Tamara McKay and Kirk Sullivan.
I will personally be enthusiastically voting for Tamara McKay.
My reasons are:
I have personal knowledge of her over this last year, interacting on the State Committee.
She is committed, patient, ethical, and repeatedly sincere in wanting to promote our conservative values in Hawaii.
We don’t need new faces, unproven track records, quitters, and proven bad track records.
Here is a recent message from her regarding a zoom town-hall TOMORROW TONIGHT:
Aloha everyone
I am Tamara McKay, running for the Hawaii State Chair position.
My experience in the party with direct participation in holding positions has been over two and half years. In that time, I have held a county Vice chair seat, and finished my full term as Maui County Chair. In that time under my leadership, we raised a significant amount of money and were able to support our candidates with donations to their campaigns, banners, mailers, radio spots, and training. Maui County has been present in its support and involvement in the communities as well as election integrity.
My experience has had its rewards and its challenges, but myself and Maui County faced it all in a united front when faced with odds. When we were informed just days before our Precinct election meetings that the state did not have enough money to keep its agreement with the counties to pay for the postage to assist in the mailers to go out to members to become delegates, we were disappointed, but we had enough funds in our account to cover the costs. West Hawaii was impacted, so we gave them funds to help them to aid in a successful PEM.
These are the types of things that we need to do as a state party.
We are on the same team, and we need to remember that. We need to be more user friendly within our organization, yet each county needs to be independent to focus on the grassroots and to recruit and support their local candidates. The state should be a resource and lead the body as a whole to success. WE need to have resources to train each county, district, and precinct to raise funds, recruit candidates, support candidates, and to ensure election integrity. We have to repair the system, and we are running out of time.
WE have a lot of challenges that we are faced with and the next person to hold the State chair needs to have full support. We need to think outside of the box for solutions, we need to be inclusive, and we need to not continue down the same path we have for years.
It is very irresponsible of the past representatives to have put the party and its members in the situation we are in today. So please keep that in mind when casting your vote, as we have members who do not want to let go of the control and are terrified of change. When you have over 60 years of losing, yet control of the party in an authoritarian style leadership, it’s hard to see anything different. But like leaving an abusive relationship, we don’t forget the past…we learn from it.
There are many decisions that need to be made, and it is up to all of us to be part of those tough challenges. We need to look at our finances and audit them, we need to consider the building and if it is feasible to maintain, we have outdated items to catch up with, fundraising to happen, candidates to recruit and train, a strategic plan, and unification to happen.
Can we do this? I believe we can…but it can only happen if we do it together. We have to place principles before personalities and look at the big picture. We need to be a voice for the communities as the people feel there is only a one party system.
I encourage you all to join me. A vote for me is a vote for you. And just like Donald Trump said, “What do you have to lose?”
I will be holding a zoom town hall and I encourage all to join in on Friday September 8 at 6pm.
Mahalo for your time. God bless you, god bless Maui, god bless Hawaii, and god bless America!
Aloha Tamara McKay
Finance Chair, HRP
Maui County Past Chair
Rules Chair, Maui County
VP Dist 12, Maui County
Grassroots, Convention of State
(808)280-0928
County Chairs and District Chairs, please feel free to share the link with Precinct Presidents as well.
They may not hold a vote at this time, but I would like to encourage voices at all levels. Mahalo
Tamara McKay is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Town Hall with Tamara McKay, State Chair Candidate
Time: Sep 8, 2023 06:00 PM Hawaii
Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86340101690 Meeting ID: 863 4010 1690
Unfortunately there have been no announcements for state VC of Coordinated Campaigns .
A couple of folks are thinking about it but no announcements as of yet.
I pray someone steps up to this position and announces soon it is very important, maybe more important that a State Chair
especially because the Presidential Caucus is in 6 months on March 12th and the funding ($10,000 per GOP candidate)
must arrive in two months on December 1st.
The election is coming up in 14 months, so please there is little time for fence setting, its time to stand up.
East Hawaii county sitrep: (first of many to come !)
We cannot wait for the state party to get their act together, we on our island need to move ahead on our own !
And we are !!
Now that our new website is up easthawaiigop.org all announcements will be posted, including executive meetings for all to listen in on,.
That way the grassroots can share their views with the Chairs of the County, Districts and Precincts, of how they feel, and what agendas they want to put forward in their communities.
So let’s all get involved, there is a place for everyone and all are welcome, we can do this together !
At the county level we are in need of a VC of fundraising and events,.
This could be a fun and rewarding position for the right person.
Fundraising is important, but events like potlucks & public gatherings are just as important, so let’s get together and get involved.
We are planning a Veterans Day parade presence, as we did last year, and please reach out to us if you can help. (This year, the parade in Hilo will be on 4 November, 2023, NOT on the actual Veterans day 11/11)
All former veterans & service members, especially ! March (in uniform !) with us !
We also need volunteers as voting day poll watchers, or even better, voting day poll workers (yes the county will PAY YOU!)
And we need volunteers to help us recruit members, and spread our message of freedom and liberty.
So let’s all get involved, there is a place for everyone and all are welcome, we can do this together.
Aloha
Mark Jones
EHCRP Chairman
