Hawaii is now a toss up in Pres. election - I have a theory.

[MyUncle]

It's about No Child Left Behind. Bush passed it and it is majorly affecting the schools and how they are accountable. People who came from other places and could not find even simple public school rankings or test scores in Hawaii were appalled. Asians (I'm one) historically are education focused. Accountability in schools was long overdue and George Bush is getting credit for forcing Hawaii schools hands on this one.

Hawaii is now finding out what most of the mainland has known for decades - schools that have a larger portion of English as second language or below poverty level score lower than schools with predominately English speaking and higher incomes. "Duh" for most of you on the mainland, but it is new news here.

Linda Lingle, a REPUBLICAN, Jewish, woman (figure that one out) was recently elected Governor has been making education reform a major talking point here and blaming the Democratic legislature for blocking her initiatives. She is winning the PR war on this.

Bottom line is Hawaii is in play. Better get to work on this one.

[baldguy]

1. OR...

A unabashedly biased right-wing group could have selectively polled a group of "likely voters" who JUST HAPPENS to be composed mostly of Republicans.

[KamaAina]

3. That poll is weak

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Oct/23/ln/ln05p.html

It shows about 12 percent undecided. Could be that a lot of likely, but not definite, Kerry voters ended up as "undecided".

Of course, the Gannett-owned Advertiser would never, ever editorialize in a news story:

With the race so close, Hawai'i could be a factor in the election, which could energize get-out-the-vote drives across the Islands and increase voter turnout.

Well, there goes that theory...

If we were truly in play, don't you think one or both campaigns would've noticed by now? It's not like we're an expensive media buy: you buy time on any Honolulu station and it covers the entire state through repeater stations.

[aquart]

2. Honestly, the Democrats have totally dropped the ball on education.

That's how NYC wound up with Republican mayors.

Generations of immigrants sent their children to public schools with high, unsympathetic standards, and we got magnificent citizens who could read and write complicated sentences, paragraphs, books.

Now we're pretending that browner immigrants can't meet those standards? Ever seen one of them on a pc? As for the "people of color" who have been here longer than most of us, standard English may not guarantee a high income, but without it anyone could guess the lifetime income would be tens of thousands less. But we don't want to impose on the poor dears. It would be disrespectful to their culture. So we've managed a nice backhanded segregation by speech. Nothing I love so well as racist policies cloaked as social enlightenment.

I never really questioned what we were doing to education until I asked an 18-year-old freshman her opinion of a movie she's seen and I hadn't. She refused to give it to me. I pressed, why not? Finally, her answer? "Because I might get it wrong." Don't ever let anyone tell you that we've dumbed down our schools to protect our children's self esteem. After that young woman, I ran into the same thing, over and over, in graduates of NYC schools. Their minds unchallenged, they had no trust in what they could think of themselves. Except among friends or family, but not in the big world.

Bush's testing program sucks. It's an income-enrichment benefit for his brother Neil. But to children starved for challenge, anything looks good.

[tommcintyre]

4. I think conservative church groups are involved also

As I mentioned in another thread, a person very active in the Dem party told me in early Sept. that they were worried already - and she thought it had to do with very conservative church groups.

Whatever the cause, anyone that wants to participate in GOTV get-out-the-vote, just got to this page of my site.

http://www.independentmediasource.com/hawaii_happenings.htm