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the time, as you have to be 30 to be governor. In 2000 he tried to run as the Green Party’s candidate, but that party successfully went to court to keep him off the ballot. This year he was successful, beating marijuana advocate Jonathan Adler, whose conviction for selling marijuana meant he couldn’t serve. Hill received 77 percent of the Natural Law vote, 688 votes. Hill was born and raised in Waimanalo on Oahu. He was president of his high school surf club and went on to start his own surf company and compete as a professional surfer for a year. That took him to Japan nine times and to Australia more than a dozen times. Some of his ideas come from seeing how other countries do things. His proposal for a $100 tax on visitors is based on Japan, which has a similar tax, he says. Hill moved to Maui a couple years ago. For his day job, he works on the Kaho’olawe cleanup project. Hill is also a professional entertainer. Earlier this year he appeared in a 15-week comedy show in Honolulu and he helps promote Maui Tacos for his friend Mark Ellman. Hill is married and his children are in a Hawaiian immersion program. He and his wife grow taro in Wailua and live in Haiku. Hawaiian groups have been slow to embrace Hill’s candidacy, even though he is the only candidate talking about Hawaiian sovereignty. Isaac Harp, a Hawaiian activist and member of the native Hawaiian groups Na Kapuna O Maui, says he thinks Hill’s comedy gets in the way of his message. “I wish he would put the comic side aside,” says Harp, who says Hill’s goal of educating people about Hawaiian issues is important. “For a comedian, he provides an alternative, but if he comes on serious, he will get more votes.” Maybe. Maybe not. It depends how important getting votes is. Hill sees the comedy as a tool to get the message out. He knows he isn’t going to get elected, so he can say what he and many others feel about the dominant culture, a culture that is increasingly alienating too many of the people who were born and raised in Hawaii. But not being mainstream has its disadvantage, too. Because he is not a major candidate, Hill has trouble getting invites to candidate forums, even ones where he would seem to be a natural, like the Hawaii Civic Club’s Governors Forum on Native Issues. He did appear at an Office of Hawaiian Affairs sponsored forum, where Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ed Case followed him. Hill says Case was joking about how hard it was to follow Bu La’ia, but he was half serious. The Akaku spots, which were shown several times, were cablecast in alphabetical order, which put Hill between Case and Republican Linda Lingle. Apparently Lingle also was uncomfortable appearing so close to Bu La’ia, as someone from her campaign called Akaku to try to get the order changed, which Akaku declined to do. That sort of discomfort is exactly why candidates like Hill are important, says the University of Hawaii’s Shapiro. “The major parties work from the top down and talk about the issues they want,” says Shapiro. “The marginal candidates bring out things in society that aren’t being discussed. They disrupt the ordinary way of deciding issues and non-issues.”
Maui Time Weekly
OCTOBER 17, 2002
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