LIHUE — Sherry Alu Campagna sat at a table in the middle of Ha Coffee Shop in Lihue, one of the few places on the island with anything approaching creds as a political hangout.
She was on island from her home on Oahu recently, on one of her first visits to Kauai after announcing her campaign to unseat U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard in the August Democratic primary.
Realizing the complexity of it, she summarized her objectives for 2018: “I’m running for Congress, getting a divorce and fighting with Sylvia Luke for $84 million.”
Just looking at Campagna’s face is enough to confirm the Hawaiian part of her ethnicity, which she describes with a hint of amusement as “Native Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese and Polish.” She’s 47 — 10 years older than the incumbent Gabbard — and announced her candidacy formally last November.
The Sylvia Luke part requires a little explanation, but says a lot about Campagna, who, if elected, would be the first Native Hawaiian woman to serve in Congress.
She is the mother of four children, ranging in age from 4 to 17. She bore two of them. The other two came to her as foster placements. She keeps her kids’ lives private, but her 12-year-old son is a student at Kamehameha School. “I’m the one with the separation anxiety,” she quipped.
In 2014, Campagna joined a class action lawsuit in which she and 6,000 other foster parents alleged that the State of Hawaii had shortchanged the foster care program by tens of millions of dollars by unfairly limiting the monthly allowance for foster homes to $649 per month. It is a figure the plaintiffs contended was impossibly low.
The case eventually settled, with the state on the hook for as much as $84 million by raising the foster care allowance to $776 per child. Only then, Luke, a powerful Oahu member of the state House of Representatives, blocked inclusion of the settlement money in the state budget. It was a blow to foster parents throughout Hawaii. The controversy is ongoing. Luke did not respond to questions about the incident posed by The Garden Island.
But that is far from Campagna’s only credit in the public arena. She is an environmental scientist and business owner, and she was the Hawaii state chair for the Women’s March on Washington, a huge international observance on Jan. 21, 2017, the day after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president. She also serves on the Hawaii Commission on the Status of Women.
The march exploded into an outpouring of rage by both women and men and what the Washington Post estimated as 4.1 million people nationwide, including 500,000 in Washington, 8,000 in Honolulu and 1,500 in Lihue, where the march morphed into a sign-waving rally at the airport intersection. Another 3 million were estimated to participate in other countries.
It was, by most estimates, the largest social protest event ever staged.
Campagna was not among the Honolulu participants. She was in Washington with a contingent of about 100 Hawaiians carrying banners that read “Aloha.” They formed a kind of conga line that snaked through the tightly packed crowd near the National Gallery of Art.
Her demeanor is reserved, but determined. She will need both as she tries to unseat the popular Gabbard, who has built a following of unusually personal loyalty on Kauai since she was first elected in 2012. Campagna’s objective may seem unreachable to some, but her determination is not to be underestimated.
Campagna said she will refuse all money from political action committees and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and plans to run a down-to-earth, grassroots campaign — all for about $250,000. The conventional political odds probably say she has set out to accomplish an impossible task. But it is undeniable that political times are changing at an overwhelming pace.
In addition to women’s and environmental issues, Campagna’s priorities include homelessness and health care access. She also hopes to focus on issues important to Hawaii agriculture.
“District 2 is the breadbasket of our state,” she said. “We need to connect resources relating to land, capital and water.”
Campagna said she is running because she believes Gabbard has focused disproportionately on foreign policy issues and taken positions on a wide range of defense and other issues at the expense of serving constituents of congressional District 2, which includes all of the Neighbor Islands and some rural and suburban areas on Oahu.
Campagna said Gabbard’s reluctance to support Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential nominee over Bernie Sanders is part of Gabbard’s problem, as well as her visit to Syria and meeting with its president, Bashar al-Assad, her refusal to cosponsor an assault weapons ban in the House of Representatives and her decision to meet with Trump during the transition.
Gabbard’s campaign responded: “There is nothing more important to the people of Hawaii than peace.”
Gabbard, the statement continued, “has made it clear that one or the main reasons she ran for Congress was to fight for peace and an end to our country’s interventionist regime change wars.”
But, the campaign said, that does not mean Gabbard has neglected Hawaii and her district constituents. The statement cited Gabbard’s support for infrastructure funding, moving away from fossil fuels, an increase in food stamp payments, protecting water resources and working to protect Social Security as among her achievements.
As to contemplating a presidential run, the campaign said that Gabbard “is focused on doing her job, serving the people of Hawaii and has not commented on any hypothetical 2020 candidates.”
The two candidates’ other differences are striking. Campagna leads Gabbard 4-0 in the kids department. Gabbard surfs; Campagna paddles. Campagna is 47 and has a broader range of experience outside of politics; Gabbard is 37 and has spent nearly her entire career running for elected office and serving. Gabbard is a military veteran; Campagna is not. However, Campagna’s father worked for many years for a defense contractor and Campagna came to know the world of military procurement. Gabbard is from a highly political family. Her father is a member of the state Senate and longtime force in Hawaii politics. Campagna has no such lineage.
Campagna is under no illusion that unseating Gabbard will be easy — if it is possible at all. But one thing that sticks in her craw most is Gabbard’s perceived focus on international military issues, particularly in Syria.
“Can’t we just be against regime change? We need someone who truly represents the people of Hawaii,” she said.
“It all comes back to the money. We’ve had 10 years of putting band-aids on things. We need corporations that care,” she said with more than a hint of exasperation.
But, she conceded, “I don’t have a solution for how to compel them. One of the most important things is that most change is from the inside out.”
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Allan Parachini is a former journalist and PR executive. He is a Kilauea resident.
Campagna misses the point of Tulsi’s foreign policy focus. Her message is that we are spending TOO MUCH money overseas that could be better applied to the people who need it at home, in our communities. I find it interesting Campagna would cite Tulsi’s support of Sanders for President as prompt for concern when Hillary was revealed to have supported an overthrow of Assad and the arming of Syrian rebels. I take issue with the author of this article alluding to a woman’s family makeup lending experience to the resume…using childlessness as fodder for painting Gabbard as inexperienced is not only anti-woman but archaic and inappropriate on the subject of an election. Shame on the author.
Being blessed to live in Hawaii 45 years, I knew our Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard since she was a little girl. She has a lot of heart and a service attitude for all people and our planet. Being a Marine Colonels daughter, I’m particularly proud of Tulsi serving in 2 wars in the mid-east. Since she saw the reality of war up close and personally, Tulsi fights hard against illegal, counterproductive regime change wars. She speaks on all that money being used for infrastructure in our country, which includes Hawaii and its people. Tulsi also serves on the House Armed Services committee and House Foreign Affairs committee, so it is part of her duties to focus on “foreign policy issues and take positions on a wide range of defense issues.”
Tutsi’s “visit to Syria and meeting with its president, Bashar al-Assad” was to see for herself what is really happening to the people and their country. When Assad wanted to meet her, she went to see if peace talks were possible. We all have to go beyond fake news and what corporate paid media wants us to believe. As for “her decision to meet with Trump during the transition” Tulsi made it clear she went early in his presidency, to try and steer him away from regime change wars.
Campagna says “Can’t we just be against regime change? We need someone who truly represents the people of Hawaii,” YES we are against regime change wars, and want peace so our family members are not sent away to fight and possibly not come home from such wars! This is true for my family who lost our Dad in Vietnam, and so many families in Hawaii and across our nation suffering such horrific losses.
I stand with Tulsi who has experience in this arena and is leading the charge against such wars. Her Stop Arming Terrorists bill is so important for all these reasons. Tulsi is spreading Aloha from Hawaii, around the world. All Blessings
The assertion that Representative Tulis Gabbard has “focused disproportionately on foreign policy issues and taken positions on a wide range of defense and other issues at the expense of serving constituents of congressional District 2” demonstrates Sherry Campagna’s lack of understanding of what it means to represent the State of Hawaii at the Federal Level.
As our Representative in Congress, Gabbard has taken an oath to protect the Constitution of the United States, and as a Major in the Hawaii Army National Guard she further serves to defend it against “all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
Part of Gabbard’s job as Representative for Hawaii’s Second District is to assume an active leadership role in foreign policy as a member of the Committee on Armed Services and subcommittees on Readiness and Emerging Threats and Capabilities. She also serves on the Committee on Foreign Affairs and subcommittees on Asia and the Pacific and the Middle East and North Africa,
By asking “Can’t we just be against regime change?” Campagna effectively embraces a platform of inaction and protectionist policies that promote the status quo, aka: endless regime change wars.
Gabbard’s meetings with Assad and Trump demonstrate a commitment to diplomacy and peaceful solutions that go beyond platforms and campaign promises. Without diplomacy unending war is inevitable, and such short-sightedness would leave us all blind.
Also in line with Campagna’s status quo policy is her criticism of Gabbard’s support for Bernie Sanders during the 2016 primary election, in which 70% of Hawaii voted for Sanders over Hillary Clinton. Any candidate who considers it a “problem” when ethical leaders accurately reflect the will of the voters they represent should not be seeking office under the claim that “we need someone who truly represents the people of Hawaii.” Representation for only 30% of the voting population is not leadership, it’s elitism. It’s time for Democrats to move past 2016 and focus on a Progressive future for Hawaii and our country.
Whether we like it or not, Hawaii is a militarized state and a hub of international policy. Only Representative Tulsi Gabbard has combined skilled diplomacy and experienced military leadership in her efforts to achieve peaceful solutions that will protect Hawaii and the world.
This lady is running as a Clinton supporter. She’s still angry. Some Hillary Clinton supporters are still angry at Tulsi Gabbard for having the audacity to support Sanders, and this is part of the payback that the Clinton fanatics promise that they would do, that they would primary Tulsi Gabbard.
Completely inaccurate.
Exactly, that’s why all the shareblue people are jumping on the bandwagon. It’s simply envy.
With so many Tulsi fans making comments here perhaps they can inform the rest of us of who paid for Tulsi’s trip to have tea with Assad in Syria? And why didn’t she form a Congressional Delegation to make this trip?
We know that Tulsi is a friend of TeaParty financier Sheldon Adelson, was it him? What is Tulsi hiding? She sure likes sneaking around in odd places.
On the other hand, voters have a chance to elect and Environmental Scientist to Congress with a real track record in supporting ALL Progressive positions including common sense gun control.
Nice!
Sherry has my vote! Tulsi makes zero sense. Tulsi claims she is all for peace. Tulsi claims she is anti-interventionist. But she literally called for Obama to bomb Syria and criticized him when he didn’t. Then she actually publicly applauded Putin when he bombed Syria. What a compromised hypocrite. The Little Miss Peace image is a fraud. Sherry’s environmentalism and her fight for the rights of foster kids are impressive. Hopefully, Sherry will focus on Hawai’i, not Russia, Syria, or Dennis Kucinich’s race in Ohio. Tulsi has abandoned us. And her Chris Butler Science of Identity buddies obviously troll comments sections.
A good question to ask is; IS Tulsi just against war or against violence as well? She is expected to share stage with a quasi-terrorist Mohan Bhagwad, leader of RSS, a shadowy neo-nazi group that incites hate and uses violence as a core means to achieve power. She will be attending a conference in Chicago in September 2018 while RSS political wing BJP has banned 11000 NGOs in India since 2014. She is working hand in glove with killers of Christians and many other minorities.
This is incorrect, she declined to be a speaker as soon as Mohan Bhagwad was announced. The conference has announced a new lead previous to all the false articles were written