ONE SICK PUPPY

ONE SICK PUPPY: Kaua`i politics is rather grim. Though the characters themselves are laughable they’re deadly serious. Though the politicians generally lack a sense of humor, most of the electorate can’t help laughing at their foibles.

But lo these many years one county council candidate has given us no end of guffaws and tee-hees and the occasions belly laugh.

And once again this year we have Bob Cariffe to kick around.

We first met Cariffe years ago when, apparently after hearing that you have to “walk the island” to get elected- meaning knock on every door from Ha`ena to Mana- he thought people meant he had to literally walk along the highway from one end of the road to the other.... which he not only did but touted as a qualification for the job

But over the years his over the top genuinely certifiable insanity has lived up to the hype in almost every election.

One year he told us he was campaigning as the President of Earthlings Against Communism, since apparently he thinks those fighting the world wide Marxist conspiracy were not only not cuckoo enough but were wasting their time while he was fighting to rid the entire universe of the real commie scourge- those Venetians and Martians.

But Bob does get votes every election and has even NOT come in in last place on occasion.

One of them was the year we went to the Farm Bureau Fair where the various council candidates were speaking. We watched a few of them give their spiel live and then got into the car to go home and listened to the rest on the live radio broadcast.

First thing we heard was long time councilman Kaipo Asing talking about what he was going to do if re-elected. He told everyone that he was going to spend 30 million dollars of taxpayer money on solid waste, rambling on about our then as now crisis-point need for a new landfill.

Next up was good old Bob who pledged- as he has every year- that if elected he would rid the island of mosquitoes.

Now if that was the only thing you heard from them that year who would you vote for?

So to make a long story longer, yesterday in the local papers’ “County Council Candidates Answer” column when it was Cariffe’s turn to answer the seven timid questions asked to all candidates we were disappointed to find that twice the paper decided that a couple of poor Bob’s answers were “not fit for publication”,

Well as connoisseurs of the Bob-isms (no not the Dylan type) we had to see what was so bad that the editors had to censor it..

Could it be another of his pateneted rants about how he was running to show his ex-wife that he wasn’t a wacko? Had the mosquito lobby finally gotten to editor Adam Harju? Had publisher Mark Lewis found out that the communists about take out full page ads?

Well a little digging brought forth the missing Bob passages passed on by a source that cannot speak its name.

The first omission was as to his specific credentials. It asked:

What specific credentials do you have for being a county council member? Why are you the best for our county? Again, let’s get specific. What positions of power have you held in the past? What connections do you have that will benefit the county?

Bob’s censored answer?

“I am president of.. Kauai Christian Orgy Club”.

How that was more offensive than being the head of “Forces United Combating Muslim Extremism” which was published is unclear.

But perhaps Bob’s final answer to the question “What is the single, most important issue to you?” might go a long way to deciphering the bizarre neural activity (well, actually that term may a bit too generous) of Cariffe.

He actually said, no joking:

The shortage of girls available to white men for sex. Many white girls are golddiggers who only mess with rich men or nonwhites. That shows they are not prejudicial when they mess with nonwhites. Asian girls already have enough people asking them who they did the nasty with to get into America.

Having them with a white man makes more people ask about their reason for being with Mister Whitey.

My answer to this problem is to implement a “dial a stud” program open only to girls. Unlike Kamehameha School it will be open for all men to register. It is amazing Kamehameha has tax free status with their racist policies. Would Bill Gates have tax free status if he started a school which would admit only whites? Not a chance in hell or heaven.

And so, in our first official endorsement for council this year we ask you to save one vote for Bob Cariffe.

There certainly aren’t seven candidates running who are worthy of election. We’ve found only four- Lani Kawahara, Ken Taylor, Bruce Pleas and Linda Pasadova- who appear to have the brains and stomach to battle the entrenched good old boys’ and girls’ corruption, secrecy and all-around abuses of power.

But if we are to send a message to the other 17 candidates we can’t just not vote for them, they won’t know the difference.

If we really want to send them a message we must do as a few of us have done in every other election listing Cariffe’s name and say to them “You know how bad it is?- I’d rather vote for a maniac like Bob Cariffe than you”.

If we have to sit through all the standard drivel and self-important bloviating and chest thumping and all these decisions to sell our island to the highest bidder we can at least put someone in for comic relief.

Besides, we’ve got a column to write every day and funny material doesn’t just grow on trees.

And he couldn’t be any worse than Derek Kawakami..