12 March 2002
Hi! Excuse me! Can I bug ya a minute? … is how I approach prospective petitioners as I solicit signatures. And while that may not be the way a life begins, it is how each campaign begins.
Hi! … is a friendly greeting. It says, “I’m not sneaking up on you.”
It gives you a chance to size me up.
Excuse me! … is an acknowledgment that I’m interrupting you.
I know that I’m using up your time.
Can I bug ya a minute? … means that I have more to say so if you need to blow me off, now would be a good time.
After that, I’ve gotten someone’s attention without getting them out of the bath or rousing them from a nap. In fact, it usually doesn’t take as long as a minute to actually sign a petition. I don’t knock on strangers’ houses, I walk the residential areas of the district and engage pedestrians and weekend gardeners and skateboarders and people out walking the dog. They’re up. They’re alert. They’re approachable.
I will not knock on someone’s door unless, a) it’s an emergency, b) I have an appointment, or c), it is the home of friends who more or less expect me, and are usually glad to see me. Other than that, NO WAY. People should respect your privacy. The Congress should respect your privacy, the State Legislature should respect your privacy, and first of all, politicians should respect your privacy. If a candidate shows so little regard for your rights while he’s begging for your support, how much will he respect them when he’s in office?
Earlier… A little background, usually in order about here…
Our family has lived on the Island of Hawaii since 1997. We moved here from the Oregon Coast. Previously I have lived (as a Navy Brat) in Oregon, on Oahu (1969-1971), and in New England and Washington State. My cumulative kama’aina tenure would now be about seven years.
I guess I was born a libertarian, but I didn’t know the word until adolescence. I developed an interest in politics at a fairly early age. My parents were split over Kennedy/Nixon, and my mother showed a great fondness for Barry Goldwater, so by the time I was 12 years old, and Nixon and Humphrey were the anointed, I was “Clean with Gene” (McCarthy.) It’s just as well that 16 year olds couldn’t vote in 1972, because at the time I believed that George McGovern was going to rescue America from the viper Nixon. I’ve since come to recant that position a bit, looking upon Richard Nixon as something of an unintentional national hero. His worse than useless price freeze of the previous year was the final straw that led to the founding of the Libertarian Party, and his presidency in general has done more to inspire distrust in government than just about any other figure in recent history. Sadly, that lesson seems not to have stuck.
In 1975 I met Early Riser, and in 1976 we were wed. She has since blessed me with two fine sons. Stargazer is presently an Astronomy major at UH in Hilo, and The Enumerator is pursuing his Masters’ Degree in Mathematics at Oregon State University.
Later, in 1976, I found myself a Jerry Brown Republican, arguing that America should return to the Gold Standard… and the Moon. I’m still working on both counts. During the same summer I’d read William F. Buckley’s “Up from Liberalism” and re-read Abbie Hoffman’s “Revolution for the Hell of It.” The two taken together set up a wicked turbulence in my mind that left me well poised for an epiphany. Working security at the Ketchikan Spruce Mill one long Alaskan summer night I ran across some literature from the Roger MacBride campaign, and first saw the word “libertarian” spelled with a capital letter and in some other context than “civil.” I read it, read it again, and all that night read it over and over. Amazing! Here was an organized group of people who seemed to believe as I did, that governments are instituted among men, and that they derive their JUST powers from the consent of the governed, and that the government that governs best governs least, and every other battle cry of freedom that I could recall from my twenty years of life.
That was twenty-six years ago this summer, and I haven’t looked back. But I did go on. I spent four years in the Air Force, served as a Jet Mechanic for the Strategic Air Command and for the Pacific Air Forces, and was honorably discharged in 1981 with four stripes, a wife, and two sons. We returned to Corn Valley to cash in my GI Bill where I studied Physics and Mechanical Engineering at Beaver Tech.
In addition to my formal course work at the University I began pursuing my political education in earnest, attending meeting Sugar and Bud. For the past twenty years they have remained trusted advisors and harsh critics. I made my first run for the House in 1982 as an otherwise unemployed full-time student. The party in Oregon didn’t manage to secure ballot status that year, so we had to run write-in. I’m pretty sure we cracked double digits on that one.
In 1986 I was graduated from OSU with a pair of degrees and a fair amount of debt. I worked where I could and let politics take a back seat to my other interests. During this time Busy Body and I drifted from each other, gradually pushing each other away. Eventually we stayed pushed. In 1988, while playing Sherlock Holmes in a local amateur theatre production, I met Diva Dearest, who was working as a sound technician in the show. We resonated both on a political and moral level, but, more important, we laughed a lot together. We were married in 1989, and in 1991, our daughter, L’Historienne was born. She is named after the cyber-hero of Robert Heinlein’s “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress,” Supergirl (in the original Kryptonian), the woman who was responsible for coaxing Drama Queen to work on the show that brought us together, and the great villain from Doc Smith’s “Skylark” series – science fiction principles run strong through this family.
By the time the political itch got strong enough to throw me back in to the fray, it was 1996. This time the Oregon party was on the ballot, and so we did much better, receiving, for myself at least, just under 2%.
Neither disappointed nor discouraged, having witnessed a progression of going from “Liber-what?” to actually being recognized, printed in the newspaper, and acknowledged on the air, I was not to be denied. I would run every chance I got. Politics, and campaigning, I had learned, was just too much fun and too satisfying to ever sit it out again. As steep as the odds appear, not trying is not acceptable.
Big talk, but life intervenes… In December of 1996, just six weeks after the election that had so fired my enthusiasm, facing another grim wet Oregon Coast winter that was taking its toll on Drama Queen’s health, and listening to Bing Crosby singing “Mele Kalikimaka” on the stereo, we realized that you can be broke and in debt anywhere in America. We’d always wanted to move to the tropics (or at least vacation.) I had lived on Oahu as a boy when the Navy had stationed my step-father at Pearl, and the Air force had sent me to Okinawa for part of my tour. I knew I was suited to the year-round barefoot scene. My mother had since moved there after her retirement and had been coaxing us to visit for some time. It took Bing, ultimately, to give us that final push.
We worked. We saved. I did double shifts. We had a huge garage sale. We packed up, tossed out, and mailed off – a box at a time. And when we stepped off the plane in Kona of August of 1997 we knew we’d made it home. Within a year we’d purchased a house – a house mind you, a house in paradise. No other place on Earth has been as good for us as the Big Island.
In 1998 Noreen Chun ran for the Congress as a Libertarian, leaving me off the hook. Besides, bettah one local girl run than some pretentious malihini. In 2000, Noreen elected not to run again, and I felt it was again time for me to step forward.
Third party candidates (unless they are gainfully retired) are still obliged to earn a living. So, while working as an Audit Clerk at the Hilton Waikoloa Village (in whose employ I remain) I chanced to meet Wayne Ryker. Here was another who was fond of an intellectual challenge and could see clearly to the center of an issue. While working together we often argued politics. I made no secret of my aspirations, and he made no secret of his doubts. He, too, has become a trusted advisor and a harsh critic. (I need them all.) It was through him that I met our wondrous web spinner, Rhonni Samplas, whose gracious generosity and titanic talents have permitted me to inflict my clumsy prose on the suffering surfing audience.
We did respectably for a party that no one had heard of a generation ago, and for a candidate who was new to the area and still pushing down roots. For the record, based on vote totals in partisan races in Hawaii, I was the most popular Libertarian of the season. Polling only half the state and winning roughly 2.4% of the vote, I beat our party’s Presidential and Senate candidates, both running statewide, and in raw numbers (4468) every other independent party candidate in the state with the exception of Ralph Nader (whose “independent” credentials are questionable.) I hope we can build on that. With your help, and the valuable support of my extended political family (see below), we will.
Hawaii’s greatest burdens are crushing taxes, suffocating regulations, and the inflexible labor laws. Hawaii is rich in resources and opportunities, but it goes nowhere if people are unwilling to invest their money, their sweat, or their dreams. A business-friendly Hawaii, freed of artificial restraints, could become a real workers’ paradise – the Hong Kong of the Pacific.
I will bring to the Congress an understanding of the limits of federal authority. These limitations are spelled out in the Constitution in concise English, and are clear to any reasonably educated person (with the obvious exception of judges, lawyers, Democrats, and Republicans.) I promise neither pork nor special favors, but freedom and opportunity for all.
Make America Greigh Anon is…
Policy & Oratory: Gene Greigh
Public Affairs: Diva Dearest
Policy Analysts: Wayne Ryker, Sugar, Bud
Inspiration: L’Historienne, The Enumerator, Stargazer
Wicked Web Craft: Rhonni Samplas
update 211110: As noted elsewhere, this election also did not work out as well as I’d hoped, but I did manage to survive. What did not survive includes my marriage to Diva Dearest, Diva Dearest herself and Wayne Ryker (both now deceased), my Hawaiian residency, regular contact with Rhonni Samplas, and the close confidences of Sugar and Bud. L’Historienne, The Enumerator, and Stargazer have all since taken their respective degrees, and they and Stargazer’s offspring remain consoling joys, even if my contact with them all is distant, fleeting, and intermittent.