Anderson & Hee might be dream team

By Bob Dye
A Kailua-based historian and writer

You can see it in his tanned and expressive face: Chinese father and Hawaiian mother.

Despite his many accomplishments, many folks know Clayton Hee best as a paniolo. As a politician, he just might be the first elected official to sit on the Capitol's fifth floor who speaks Hawaiian well. Advertiser library photo • March 1, 2000

It's a deli and restaurant, located behind Mike's car lot in Kailua.

A jar of crunchy kosher-style pickles is on each table. Mike plunges fingers in, motioning us to do the same. Clay extracts his with a fork, places it on a plate, and slices off a bite. Mike, munching gustfully and wiping pickle juice from his chin with a wad of paper napkin, doesn't comment on Clay's good table manners.

What's your Hawaiian name? I ask Clay.

"I don't have one," he says. He was born 48 years ago, he explains, at a time when parents didn't label kids with Hawaiian names. Growing up, he told inquiring folks he was Chinese-Hawaiian. Later he changed the order to Hawaiian-Chinese.

Now he says Hawaiian. He named his son Ka'ohukauikala'i.

To understand his culture, Hee studied Hawaiian until he spoke the language fluently. He is a graduate of Kamehameha Schools, where he was student body president and co-captain of the football team; and of the Hawaiian Studies Program at UH-Manoa. After graduating with a master's degree in Pacific studies from UH, he taught the native language to students on Moloka'i. If he wins, he will be the first elected official to sit on the fifth floor of the statehouse who speaks the language well.

McKenna, who has automobile dealerships on O'ahu and the Big Island, says he will help Clay raise the half-million dollars needed to run a successful race. Mike has also volunteered to raise money for Andy Anderson's campaign for governor. "I think it would be great," he says, "to have an all-Hawaiian team run this state."

So, at long last, the Year of the Hawaiian may be at hand. How would voters feel about two Hawaiians heading the ticket?

"Voters don't immediately think of Andy as a Hawaiian," says Hee.

"That's true," Andy agreed, when I asked him later. "Although I am Hawaiian and proud of it, I never campaigned as a Hawaiian. I think that voters think of me, first and foremost, as a businessman."

Thinking about an Anderson-Hee vs. Lingle-??? race, a veteran Hawaiian political strategist advises: "The winner will have to put the Hawaiian and the haole vote together."

Would Hawaiian voters turn out in sufficient numbers?

The strategist smiles wryly. "Hawaiians vote by not voting." After a pause, she adds: "Even Hee's detractors say he's smart."

Hee, who doesn't see the lieutenant governorship as a terminal office, has paid his political dues. While residing on the Friendly Island, he was elected in 1982 to represent the 9th ("canoe") District of Moloka'i/Lana'i/West Maui, in the lower chamber. Returning to Kane-

'ohe in 1984, he won election to the state Senate, where he served as assistant majority leader and chairman of the judiciary committee.

In 1990, he was elected, in a statewide election, as O'ahu trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. He served as its chairman from May 1991 to October 1997, and again in the year 2000. During his tenure, the value of the trust's portfolio rose from $19 million in 1990 to $350 million today.

Through OHA, he intensified his crusade to make Hawaiian a truly living language. A total immersion K-12 school on the Big Island, the first to be taught exclusively in the Hawaiian language, was begun. And a College of Hawaiian Language was established at UH-Hilo. In addition to the B.A., it offers a graduate degree in Hawaiian language and literature, another first.

Despite these accomplishments, many folks know Clay best as a paniolo. He's been competing in rodeos since 1975, and dresses more like a working cowboy than a practicing politician. He also performs as a slack-key guitarist.

Hee has put together a pre-campaign team of supporters including attorneys Bob Katz and Wayne Kekina; Maui County Council Chairman Patrick Kawano, businesswoman Sheila Watamull; his Kamehameha school principal Gladys Brandt; and McKenna. Clay's wife, Lynne Waters, is his media coordinator, of course.

Clay is making "courtesy calls" to inform leading Democrats of his candidacy, among them longtime friends Ben Cayetano and John Waihe'e. And he's met with gubernatorial wannabes — an early chat with Harris, briefly with Hirono, and talks over time with Anderson.

As of today, Clayton Hee is the leading candidate for LG. It's too early to predict, I know. But, remember, with non-Hawaiians voting for OHA candidates, he got 156,000 votes statewide last November. Only lovable U.S. Sen. Dan Akaka got more.

So, if LG isn't his terminal goal, where does Hee want to finish his political career? My bet is as a member of the U.S. Senate. "I would love to advocate the indigenous rights of Hawaiians on the floor of the Senate," he says fervently.

Other Democrats who may run for lieutenant governor are state Sens. Matt Matsunaga and Ron Menor, and Honolulu City Councilmen John DeSoto and Jon Yoshimura.

Rep. Ed Case, once rumored to be interested in the office, emphatically says he has "never, not ever, wanted to be LG," hinting broadly that only a Rip Van Winkle would want that do-nothing job.

"I will be an activist LG," says Hee. "I'll give my LG day-to-day responsibility for running the state," says Anderson.

Andy, do you mean, as in a corporation, you'll be thechief executive officer and the LG will be the chief operating officer? I ask this to make sure that I understand you intend to deviate from a state constitution that makes the LG a mere clerk.

"You're damn right!" he says.

For sure, Andy and Clay are full-steam-ahead, creative problem-solvers. Yet both of them believe in bringing people together, Hawaiian-style, to achieve consensus. Even if it frustrates them.

Although both men say they can work with whomever voters match them, Anderson & Hee may be the long-awaited political partnership made in lani kua ka'a, the highest heaven.

(Did I say that OK, Clay? Or do I need total immersion?)