HOOSER: To those candidates who lost

Losing sucks, but please don’t blame the voters.

You lost, and you should take responsibility for that loss — no one else.

Having been a candidate myself in 10 different campaigns — I know first-hand how much it sucks to lose.

In 1994, in my very first campaign for election for one of seven seats on the Kauai County Council, I finished No. 10. For you history buffs, No. 1 was the beloved Kaipo Asing, No. 2 was Randal Valenciano (now Chief Judge of the Fifth Circuit), No. 3 Maxine Correa (retired), and No. 4 Ronald Kouchi (now state Senate President).

I’ll never forget that election evening. Our campaign hosted a gathering of friends and campaign volunteers who gathered anxiously around the radio, awaiting KONG’s Ron Wiley to tell the world who the winners would be.

After the second printout showed clearly that I was not going to be among those winners, my campaign manager and totally awesome friend Dave said to me, “Gary, they lied to us. If they were telling us the truth, you would have won.”

Dave spoke of the thousands of people we had met going door-to-door in just about every neighborhood on the island. Everywhere we went, people would smile and shake our hands, and say nice things to me and about me.

At first I shared Dave’s feeling of betrayal, but soon realized these were just nice people saying nice things and the responsibility for losing was mine, not theirs.

That night, after the final printout, I remember going out to my car and taking the bumper stickers off. That’s how sad and dejected the feeling was.

But the next morning I went out to the car again, put new bumper stickers back on, held my head high and stood with my “Mahalo” sign on the highway at sunrise.

Since that first foray into politics in 1994, I’ve run 10 campaigns for election to public office, winning six and losing four.

Trust me on this. Winning is so much more fun than not winning.

Losing means a majority of voters prefer your opponent over you, and that my friends is a difficult pill to swallow. But that’s the bottom line.

Candidates lose elections because they fail to inspire, convince, or motivate voters to show up and vote for them.

That’s why Kamala Harris lost, that’s why I lost those four races, and that’s why every single candidate loses.

Money of course plays a huge role and SuperPac’s are always a convenient place to lay the blame. But in the presidential race there was big money in play on both sides. Nope it wasn’t money that beat Kamala Harris, but rather her failure to inspire and motivate a majority of voters.

Locally, the blame the money game is less credible because the districts are generally small enough to walk, and knock, and benefit from that all important direct voter contact.

The majority of local candidates who lose more often than not, fail to actually run a real campaign.

They avoid the hard work of going door-to-door, they hesitate to ask people for help and for campaign donations, and they remain in their own safe circle of demographics surrounded by people just like themselves. When they do attend political forums or speak directly to voters, they talk about their own favorite issues instead of what’s important to the people who live in the district.

Then they lose and start the blame game. They blame the political parties, they blame the special interests, they blame the media and they blame and denigrate the voters.

Kudo’s to those candidates who take responsibility and resist seeking someone else to blame. I wish you well and encourage you to build upon this experience, and try again in the future.

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Gary Hooser served eight years in the state Senate, where he was majority leader. He also served for eight years on the Kaua‘i County Council. He presently writes on Hawai‘i Policy and Politics at www.garyhooser.blog.