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Rick Blangiardi is beginning his Metropolis Corridor profession with an astounding success: He received with 58% of the vote, with a whopping 224,218 voters saying “sure” to his candidacy.
Not solely is it an enormous margin of victory, it comes out of a record-setting variety of Honolulu votes forged, 384,951.
On a political degree, Blangiardi was the right candidate for the race.
First, he had by no means held elected workplace. Most often this election yr, not being tagged an incumbent was a plus. Already within the mayor’s race, incumbents and skilled politicians had been rejected within the major with the final election race going to Blangiardi and one other newcomer, businessman Keith Amemiya.
Amemiya’s marketing campaign turned out to be an often-repeated story of the way you want greater than your pals to win campaigns. You should have a constant theme and message. Amemiya fielded his race with all-star donations and highly effective union endorsements, however ended up spending a lot useful time complaining about political assaults whereas his marketing campaign was the primary to go unfavorable with assaults on Blangiardi’s voting document as a personal citizen.
Former governor and veteran campaigner Neil Abercrombie’s greatest piece of political recommendation I ever heard was, “Voters don’t vote due to your causes, they vote due to their causes.”
Compared, Blangiardi’s marketing campaign theme was “It’s about you” and that resonated with 58% of the voters.
The retired broadcast government additionally benefited from placing himself on tv for a number of years of nightly commentaries. Very like former Congressman Cec Heftel when he ran KGMB, Blangiardi was in a position to level out group points, touch upon them and generally advise options. In fact, this was executed earlier than declaring for workplace, however nightly appearances on tv does wonders on your public recognition.
Blangiardi’s third profitable technique was staying with the “I’m an unbiased, not a Republican, not a Democrat” theme. Amemiya drove straight for the Democratic label, maybe considering that making himself partisan in a nonpartisan election was a good suggestion, or maybe it simply allowed him to harp with out proof that Blangiardi was a closet Republican.
When the election was modified from partisan to nonpartisan, a lot of the argument was that the mayor’s job in Honolulu is that of a supervisor, not as an R or D.
The talk was that there was no Republican or Democratic strategy to reduce the grass within the parks. That premise nonetheless holds and clearly voters purchased the reasoning.
Now Blangiardi may need for a extra elaborate set of directions as he steps into workplace in January. The town’s funds are precarious and money owed are more likely to rise. The Metropolis Council is coming in with new management, and never as Blangiardi supporters. Two main public unions, HGEA and UPW, endorsed Blangiardi’s opponent, though the police union backed the previous TV government.
Blangiardi is more likely to discover that his overwhelming victory was final week’s TV present, and he’ll must do way more to maintain voters from altering the channel.
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Attain him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.
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