"Minority Leader Andria Tupola — Beth Fukumoto’s replacement and supposed “Republican” — wants to normalize the homeless lifestyle when she should be leading the GOP assault on Democrats for the harmful policies which cause more than half of Hawaii residents to struggle from paycheck to paycheck."
Many RINOs in the party. Andria represents Koolina and Nanakuli. Half are very conservative and half are very liberal. My impression is that she's a "Republican" because it was easier to run against the incumbent. The Democrat that ran against her last time was a real dweeb.
I'm just curious. "Republican" is simply a party affiliation. Relying on that alone to tell you how liberal, conservative, libertarian or independent someone is no longer works.
Trump is (IMHO) an independent. He used to be a registered Democrat, but he's identified with the Republican party the last few years in opposition to Obama, and later to Clinton. He became affiliated with the Republican party to oppose Hillary and have the best chance of getting elected President. It's obvious the party doesn't support him, even though he's their de facto party leader.
Since Hawaii is democrat party controlled, the only way to get Republicans elected is to appeal to the Democrat base by differentiating yourself from the other candidates. Lingle is a good example. She didn't fight the Democrats as much as she fought her individual opponents. Mazie lost voters when she didn't get the Governor's endorsement until after Harris dropped out. By then, people were skeptical of the Governor's support for his Lt Governor. While Mazie ran on the same old tired party talking points, Lingle was pushing issues and positions which mattered to the voters.
As for the homeless issue, it is a real problem that isn't going away. No matter how much is done to raise people's income, there will always be homeless. Having no specific place for them to call home creates the problems we now have with the "clean-up, relocate, set-up camp, repeat" situation. Not every person on the streets is there because of limited income opportunities. Demonizing Tupola for identifying a real on-going problem is not grounds to doubt her "Republican" beliefs.