 Aloha, welcome to Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers, and Reformers Politics in Hawaii series. I'm your host, Carl Campania. Thank you for joining us. So, we all know that Donald Trump won the presidency last year. And there's been a lot of conversation as to why and how that happened. From a number of perspectives, specifically from the Democratic Party, or people attacking the Democratic Party, some of those issues were, it was Hillary versus Bernie, and the people who disagreed about what happened there and who side you should take. And then it was emails and the FBI and how that came to play, especially when FBI Director Comey, 11 days before the election, released a statement that there were more emails, even though they were actually copies of previous emails. And then recently there have been discussions that have come up about DNC spending. The important note there is the amount of money, and let's focus on three states in particular, the three states we always talked about, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. It's important to recognize that last year, the DNC spent a tenth in those states as they had the previous two presidential election cycles. That's interesting, and that's an important point to note. And there's perhaps several reasons for that, arrogance may be one of them. But we're going to discuss that a little bit. Other issues, bigger picture issues have to do with the Democratic Party and what they've been doing over the past two generations. And part of that conversation is a transition that has happened from our original popular perspective of the Democratic Party coming back from the 50s and 60s and 70s even, and as it began to transition from the economic reform policies, making sure that we're taking care of our people, making sure that we're getting more jobs and we're getting more benefits available for people, getting higher wages, helping the American dream happen in all these ways. This was the popular economic reform. And as a result of that, we were also able to get social justice reform, civil rights and so forth. Well, a transition happened, and that transition had us more as a party focus a bit more on the social justice issues than on the economic reform. So you kind of let those go. And that was highlighted in last year's election because that's one of the big things Donald Trump was talking about. It's one of the big things Bernie was talking about, and then Hillary would talk about it as a result of that. So that was a big piece of it, and I think that is one of the core issues. So within that, and as you look back, and we won't go through all this now, but as we look back over the past couple of generations, you realize that parties have an evolution and how they change and how they become what they are today versus 10 years ago, 30 years ago. So to help us discuss this a little bit further, I have a guest today I'm very thrilled to have joined us. His name is Raphael Leonard. He is relatively new to me anyway, as far as the Democratic Party is concerned. He was brought in, I think, with a wave of Bernie supporters, which we welcome that we need that conversation. So please join me in welcoming Raphael Leonard. Aloha. Thank you so much for having me on. Thank you, and I appreciate you being on the show. I hope to have a good conversation. So first, before we jump into all of that stuff, I just sort of threw out there. Tell us about yourself. How long have you been involved in politics and what got you where you are today? I would say peripherally involved in politics. I grew up in a Democratic family. Grew up in a hippie family. But then as I was growing up, I was not necessarily overly involved in the Democratic Party in terms of the actual structure and how it functions. And I began to learn a little bit about that with Barack Obama when he ran. And I sort of got a hint of what was going on in there. And then this previous presidential preference poll, which is what the caucus is called in Hawaii, was the first time that I actually voted in a presidential primary style voting event. And there were a lot of different things going on in one room with very little people to help out, to put it politely. And I now communicate regularly with all of those people who were helping out. So I was vaguely aware of what a precinct was, and I ended up becoming a precinct president of the Democratic Party within Hawaii. So that is an elected position to the private party in Hawaii. And from there, just sort of snowballed. I began to get an inside look for what was and was not happening inside the party. And it gave me a stronger understanding of the confusion that was happening amongst the general public of the Democratic Party on the national level. Sure. And that also can help you begin to have that insight on how we can fix a few things. Yes, absolutely. From the inside. Because I think when we first started to communicate a few months ago, it was all about, well, okay, great. Everybody wants change. What does that change look like? Let's take a look at the rules. Let's take a look at what the governing documents are, what needs to be changed, and let's make those changes. And that's really where we're at now, right? Because we have a convention coming up, trying to figure out, okay, what do we do and how do we go from there? So okay, like many people, you were sort of peripherally involved in politics. You kind of listened, but like many people inspired by former President Barack Obama and you started to pay attention more. And then as you began to get more involved with it, then here comes Bernie. So you were a Bernie supporter. I don't want to put you on the spot there you can. However, you want to say that. I believe you were a Bernie supporter. Many of us were. Many of us are also Hillary supporters. There was a conflict there. But tell us about, what was it about Bernie's point of view that brought you in to get you more engaged? It wasn't in my mind. It wasn't quite so developed at the time, but it was really addressing a lot of the issues that affect a lot of us on a day to day basis. But that are kind of a little touchy to talk about sometimes. Like it's a little uncomfortable to talk about the fact that like maybe my healthcare isn't working for me or maybe I just yesterday was met with someone who was trying to take care of her grandmother and because she wasn't able to get family leave for her grandmother under certain definitions and all the paperwork, her family had to send her grandmother back to the Philippines. So like these are really uncomfortable situations which I felt that Bernie Sanders in particular was really addressing. He was speaking to these. So we're talking about healthcare and how it impacts an individual, a family. Not this large idea that nobody can understand that you know what this has an impact. How we're addressing immigration and some of the immigration concerns that are going on, the cost of it and what that really... So what I have heard as well and what more people are beginning to pay attention to and you tell me if you agree is we're starting to pay attention to those conversations. We're starting to pay attention, I hope, to real people and their real daily concerns. I would largely agree with that. And I think there's some details that are going on with that. One is that a lot of people who care about these issues are getting actively involved with the Democratic Party. Or politics in general. Or politics in general. But as a result of getting involved I think that there are more people who are actually speaking to this issue. But then also as a whole I think that our eyes are definitely opening up to there are these different groups that we support in theory but may not necessarily be directly addressing their needs and practice. Exactly. And I think that's an important point that you're making again because that goes back to the idea of there are all these great big ideas most of us don't have the time to actually spend looking at it. But as more and more as we're seeing yes people's eyes are being opened up in a different way or as I stated last week the amount of civic engagement at the moment is higher than it has been for generations perhaps since the Revolutionary War because the number of people who are saying or joining one group or another and it hasn't been only the Democratic Party it's been non-partisan groups as was mentioned there's so many of them more than can be named across the country that are actively involved and engaged and trying to have a voice some are just declaring this is my voice and that's what we need we need people to not be shy about that, right? So that's where you come from seeing all of this stuff and saying there are issues that are affecting everyday people and everyday people need to have somebody looking after them and so that's where you're coming from so you got engaged you got engaged in the process I've been very engaged in all levels of the process I ended up going to the county convention last year as well as the state convention I'm pretty close with some of the national delegates so just even having that secondhand information and experience of how conventions work and what they even are it's huge it provides a lot of I think background for a lot of setting for what's happening nationally as well as locally so that was an experience you talk about eyes getting open it's like okay it's too much, right? Yeah, I mean it definitely is overwhelming excuse me I think one of the most overwhelming things for me was just I had this large perception that the Democratic Party was this robust, fully functioning party and let's be clear the Democratic Party functions on volunteers and as many people are volunteering that's as many people as we're going to have the energy and the areas that I was getting involved in there were a limited number of volunteers and as a result of that as a precinct president I take on a lot more responsibility if I'm the only one involved Exactly, and that can be discouraging for some people, right? It can absolutely be discouraging I still have conversations where now I have more people involved both my precinct and my district and then it's like the next step up is well how are we going to make that happen and I think to expect that this is not going to be an uphill climb is I think it's just unrealistic I think the path in terms of creating civic engagement is very straightforward I think also acknowledging the amount of work that it takes to create that civic engagement is maybe not something we want to acknowledge but it's there It's a lot of work and requires dedicated people to spend time volunteer time perhaps away from family going out and engaging people that they don't know Yeah, I've seen both in the burning campaign as well as within the Democratic Party and even outside of the Democratic Party people who otherwise would never be going up to random strangers and having pretty awkward conversations about Hey, I'm your neighbor, you've never met me before but I'm interested in these things and I'm wondering if you're interested in them too But it makes a connection then, right? Because at first it's awkward and then you start having a conversation and the next thing you know you're realizing that there's a dialogue here that wasn't there before No, I think there's a vacuum in terms of the conversation and the more you get involved in the conversation the more you realize everyone has the same problems Everyone has the same problems the more you have those conversations the more you realize some thoughts you have other people also have and agree with and it helps shape and redefine your thoughts as well, right? Yes, and I would also point out that many people you thought you agreed with you might disagree with And one if you are another or across the board And I think that the disagreement tends to not be so much we were discussing this earlier tends to not be so much about the end result we would like to happen is usually the same positive situation but it's the interpretation of the information that we have available and how we get there and how we get there and that right there is the divide between the parties the two primary parties at the very least is how we get there is two different approaches and that's another topic So, okay Alright, so first of all thank you for your engagement in the process and thank you for agreeing to jump in and have these conversations as awkward as they can be As someone who recently ran for a state seat I know how difficult it is to go knock on people's doors and say, hi, how are you? You don't know me but hey, can we talk about something and see what happened from there but have you found that ends up becoming an inspiring thing? I wouldn't say all of the time and not that it's a demotivating thing but I think it just depends on the conversation and the people that are engaged but certainly, I would say for most of the conversations I've had at the very least just someone even having someone else to talk to about is eye-opening that there are other people that are paying attention to this Exactly, so unfortunately we already have to take a break so thank you for joining us this is Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers and Reformers I'm your host, Carl Campania Thanks again to Raphael Leonard for joining us today See you in one minute Hi, I'm Cheryl Crozier Garcia I'm the host of Working Together on Think Tech Hawaii It's a program where we discuss the impact of change on workers, employers and the economy So join us every other Tuesday from 4 o'clock to 4.30 We're live in the studio on Working Together in Think Tech Hawaii Take care, see you soon. Bye Aloha, my name is Joe Kent and I'm the Vice President of Research at the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii The Grassroot Institute is a public policy think tank and we try to build a better economy in Hawaii and you can see us on the TV show Ehana Kako on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcasting Network every Monday at 2 o'clock We'll see you there and let's build a better Hawaii together Aloha Welcome back to Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers and Reformers Politics in Hawaii series I'm your host Carl Campania Once again, please welcome our guest, Mr. Raphael Leonard He's currently Precinct President Correct And that's for another year? Yes, that is for another year and then I actually don't know when I think it's technically the Precinct elections happen The Precinct elections roughly march-ish every two years Excellent, okay So, getting engaged So, okay, what this is really it what we're talking about here is the rebuilding of the grass roots The Democratic Party was founded primarily at least going back to the 50s, 60s and so forth was founded on grass roots initiatives People, reaching out to people the volunteers going out and finding out what's going on and how are we engaging and getting people motivated and activated and advocating and that's grass roots So, what we need to be doing right now is recognize the opportunity that we have to rebuild that grass roots because of the interest and engagement that we have right now in the process So, with that in mind Yeah, there's a lot of different parties the two primary parties we have are Democrats and Republicans So, Raphael, from your perspective what is the purpose of the Democratic Party? Where is the Democratic Party coming from? What does it mean? I guess maybe for you, maybe we should put it that way Yeah, well, I think it's interesting because there is history behind this it really, you know, there's what I would like the Democratic Party focus to be and then what the focus has been Okay, tell us about that In 2004, there was a shift after the general election more towards a 50-state plan within the, and that was top-down This is high-level strategy and how we are approaching elections Exactly And then in 2008, there's a turnover in the chairs just as a natural way of how the elections and the primaries go and there is a move away from that focus and a little more focus towards very specific races And the challenge with focusing on very specific races in terms of election races is that you really only like, if you don't go at if you don't try certain things then you have 100% guarantee that you're not going to win them And so that was one of the challenges in terms of the Democratic Party was narrowing down the focus on races, elections and then within that, focusing on very specific elections And it moved away, not completely but it moved away from a 50-state plan And as a result of that there became less focus on the actual infrastructure of the Democratic Party So each state party has a large number of positions and there's a hierarchy to them which usually follows the county lines as well as the house district lines or however the party chooses As you were saying, you go from precinct to district to region to county to state and there's those levels of hierarchy and then from there there's little divisions and so on as well And so the important thing about that is that if all of those positions are filled up and engaged which is really much more important I think if they're engaged then you have a grassroots that is paying attention to the issues is paying attention to what the party is doing and also is living in their community So there's this That's how it's supposed to work It's supposed to work so that all of the precinct people the presidents, the vice presidents, the treasurers, the secretaries and all of the other members who are part of that precinct for that party are supposed to be working together to grow, to talk, to communicate and to then relay that information through the system That's how it's supposed to work That's how it's supposed to work and I would also point out that in terms of how it's supposed to work it's also a two-way communication because then there can also be a top-down communication which has maybe been more of the focus But through getting involved one of the things that I noticed in Hawaii was that there were kind of a lot of gaps that I would have thought would be filled I would have thought that the grassroots of the party was more engaged That was an assumption that I was working on without absolutely any information It's an assumption we all had when we first began It's like, oh, I'm going to join the Democratic Party I agree with all these principles That's a wonderful thing I want to get engaged Who's all these people who are helping? Oh, there's ten of you Not four thousand of you And depending on where you are ten might be a really high number I've been lucky to engage people throughout the country So in different parts of the country especially in the more what we classify as red states a lot of times there will be entire regions or counties which might have up to ten people for the county and if you think about a county that's Oahu is a county level and Oahu has roughly two to three hundred involved officials, I guess active party members active party members, thank you And so if you think about the difference between having two hundred active party members to engage Oahu citizens versus ten Especially when you realize that our roles suggest there are sixty thousand members sixty thousand members across the state and there's maybe three hundred that are that maybe are active probably fewer than that who are actually active on a regular basis Yeah, active is I think a loose term So yeah, there's a convention coming up we have a convention coming up on April 22 and that's where all the delegates you have to become a delegate each district gets twenty-four delegates and you go to the convention and that's where you work on things you work on the rules you work on the platform you work on the caucuses and what you're going to be doing and how you're going to be doing it and how you want to proceed the next two years as far as the county perspective is concerned is what we have coming up next year there will be another state one and that's the next step of that but that's where the work gets done and that's where a lot of people will show up we'll get three hundred people three hundred fifty people who show up to the convention but then after that not all of those people stay engaged, right? Yes But that's your job to keep them engaged, right? That's one of my goals is to help promote that that goes for trying to help other people as well as trying to educate and help myself I'm still learning about what are the most effective ways that I can be involved and utilize my time because I do also have a job and limited amounts of time but yeah, I think that in terms of so if you have two hundred, let's say actively engaged members of the Democratic Party that's a great starting place because what you can do with that is you can contact other Democratic Party members and inform them about the different opportunities that they can have coming up and really in an ideal situation a precinct is a small section of a district depending on where it is and ideally an active precinct is engaging their neighbors Their neighbors, their community because again that's the point of it That is the entire point So I know that there are some precincts that have no officials in them at the moment and other precincts where they're full and we need more people in all precincts So okay the different ways of communicating some of the challenges that we have in communicating with people is not everybody has email not everybody even has a phone all the time or we don't have their phone number at the very least or the email and phone numbers that we have have changed so how are we getting to people so from your perspective as a precinct president really what are the different techniques you're using to reach more people I think the most important place to start is what are people interested in what are the issues that they're interested in what are their concerns perhaps with the party how not necessarily how do they want to get involved but what are the things that they're talking about so I think that's really important but how do you reach them yeah well so what I've been doing is I've been having semi-irregular meetings which for some precincts they go above that and for many precincts just because there's almost no one involved it doesn't really make sense to have one person show up to their precinct meeting but so one is by reaching out to them I have a small email list just of people that indicated they were interested in being active another way is also the Democratic Party has access to all of its current members that are signed up with the party so you can reach out to them that way you can do emails and I'm mentioning these things because they sound pretty simple and straightforward the more I get involved the more I realize that even these relatively simple things don't happen and I actually went to so Oahu's divided up into regions I went to the Region 5 meeting last night and I forget the gentleman's name but he was basically mentioning some pretty straightforward things like do you have food and do you have a regular meeting time and so I think in terms of just getting people to show up and get engaged and the other thing he was mentioning was you need to have substance to your meeting like if I call a meeting just to talk with other people about things that's not an effective use of their time and it's demotivating so pick an issue we're gonna all get together and talk about this issue and then what we're gonna do what's the action that we are then gonna take so that's what we actually would hope is happening on that community level that precinct level is let's get together and talk about healthcare in Hawaii and how that is impacting our community and let's learn from that and then take that out to the people whether it's phone calls whether it's knocking on their doors whether it's calling for other community meetings whether it's going to neighborhood boards and trying to say hey here's the topic here's a discussion that's happening and this month we're trying to communicate with our community on this issue to get feedback and that's what can be done that is being done most of the time for the most part it's not currently happening but is that what you're trying to build? Yeah, I mean my angle for the precinct I work with is in Kailua and my angle is really to create an active group of grassroots individuals who not necessarily even entirely just party focused but who are engaged in our state legislature who are showing up to neighborhood board meetings I just went to my first neighborhood board meeting there's some pretty interesting things happening there Interesting things and yet you also realize a number of people a number of community members who actually show up to that I'm on my neighborhood board and this last Monday we went and I think from the community itself there was a handful of people maybe as many as 10 the number of officials that are neighborhood board members the legislators or legislators representatives the board of water supply and you go through the whole list of people but as an official they outnumber the actual community members and that's one of the issues that we have so yes, that's one way and so unfortunately we're already at the end of our show doesn't that happen quickly, right? So this whole thing is about rebuilding the grassroots and I don't care honestly if you're Democrat, Republican if you think you're a Democrat or Republican if you don't care about parties if they just make you mad where we are right now is a point where we must be engaged we must find a way to be engaged we must make sure that the conversations are being had about what's impacting you in your daily life and what can we do to make it better as a society and that's where we are so thank you for joining us this is Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers and Reformers Politics in Hawaii I'm your host Carl Campania thanks again to Raphael Leonard for joining us today thanks to the staff and the crew here at Think Tech Hawaii everybody's wonderful here remember, rebuild the grassroots see you next time