Today will be marked by two things from a Hawaii perspective.

First, this will be an official and explicit recognition of native Hawaiians in the Democratic Platform for the first time. Originally, we had hoped simply to add native Hawaiians to a list of native Americans, but we’ve now got our own paragraph in the platform. It makes specific reference to the Native Hawaiian Reorganization Act, the Apology Resolution, native gathering rights and cultural practices. Sen. Akaka, my executive director Flo Kong Kee, and platform committee member Lono Lyman have been working on this for months.

Second, Senator Clinton is speaking.

So far, Maya Soetoro Ng, Michelle Obama, and Senator Ted Kennedy have been the highlights. I expect Senator Clinton to give a rousing endorsement of Barack Obama and put to rest any remaining doubt about party unity. The feeling that I get from interacting from delegates from across the nation is that the “disunity” theme is mostly being ginned up by the national media.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 3:03 pm and is filed under Hawaii Democrats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.