When you’ve already lost the same election twice in a row, I guess you need to try some unusual campaign tactics. In his third attempt now at winning the Wailuku-Waihee-Waikapu Maui County Council seat, land broker Joe Blackburn has already told the press that he and his people would pluck weeds from Eha Street in Wailuku and give out free pancakes (in early August, Blackburn said his campaign handed out “over 500 plates”).
Now he’s trying donuts.
“Every Thursday between the hours 8 and 10 am Nathan Nunuha and the Friends of Joe Blackburn will be giving away free Donuts at the corner of Vineyard and Market Streets in Wailuku at Blackburn’s Corner,” states the Friends of Joe Blackburn press release Blackburn himself emailed me this morning.
For those keeping score at home, Blackburn lost to incumbent Councilman Mike Victorino by nearly 14,000 votes in 2012 and not quite 13,000 votes in 2014. Of course, Victorino can’t run again in 2016 because of term limits, which ordinarily means Blackburn might have a decent shot of winning the seat this time.
Except–and this is a big EXCEPT–current Maui County Managing Director Keith Regan has also announced that he wants to succeed Victorino. Regan’s campaign manager/wife Lynn Araki-Regan misses few opportunities to publicize her candidate/husband (she even sent out a press release to nearly three dozen news organizations and reporters announcing that Keith would hold a “watching party” for the Sept. 5 USC-Arkansas State football game at Watercress Sports Bar in Wailuku). How do you run against that?
Then again, we are talking free donuts here…
Photo courtesy Friends of Joe Blackburn
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