On behalf of Senator Akaka's campaign, I want to thank the blogosphere and Kossacks for your interest and support during our primary election battle with Ed Case. After having had a few days to review precinct returns, I have little doubt that progressives played a major role in securing a victory in last Saturday's primary.
Over the past few months, our race was featured by Chris Cillizza in The Fix, by Jonathan Singer on MyDD.com, on Firedoglake, by McJoan, and even by Kos himself. These efforts together with blogging support from the Mainland (thank you Schultzy!) and Hawaii based Kossacks allowed us to get the word out to progressives about the importance of this race.
When I began blogging and keeping a diary under my own name regarding this race, I was uncertain whether it would be noticed. Boy, was I wrong. The mainstream media picked up on some of my posts, and I began hearing from local bloggers who wanted to help with the campaign. I quickly learned that keeping a diary was an invaluable way to communicate with fellow progressives about this race.
From the beginning of our efforts, we wanted Hawaii voters to know about the differences between Senator Akaka and Case on the war in Iraq and other issues of interest to progressives. Kos provided me with the ideal forum to communicate about issues of importance to Hawaii voters and to make people aware generally that our race was, essentially, the reverse of the Lamont-Lieberman race.
We are now moving into general election mode, and I am looking forward to continuing my communications with the blogosphere. There are significant differences between Senator Akaka and his Republican general election opponent, and I am looking forward to continuing a dialogue started earlier this year.
Mahalo nui loa,
Andy Winer
Campaign Manager
Akaka in 2006