In the midst of a hotly contested ( and soon-to-be-ended ) campaign for state party officer posts, HIRA has the following suggestions: First, try to imagine a newspaper headline like this appearing this coming Sunday morning following this weekend's GOP state convention on Kauai:

Widespread Cheating

Elevates Andria Tupola to

Chairmanship of Hawaii GOP

Now think about the answers to some important questions:  Would such an illegitimate outcome to our party's internal elections inspire local voters to abandon their support for Democrats?  Would it welcome swing voters and that huge block of non-voters into the GOP universe for 2018, or not?  And would all the well-documented cheating and manipulation by Tupola's campaign gangstas merely finalize the total self-destruction of our party in Hawaii, whether or not Saturday's state convention leads to post-election legal battles?

As you may already know, the race for party chair is a 2-woman race. On Mike Buck's radio show last week ( which nobody really listens to, by the way ), Fritz Rohlfing finally admitted that he's NOT running for re-election as state chair .  Heck, he'd already told HNN viewers weeks earlier that he supports Beth Fukumoto's stealthy and personally ambitious replacement as House minority leader Andria Tupola over Miriam Hellreich's handpicked choice Shirlene Ostrov.

So, the world's worst kept secret is even less of a secret today .

However, there are still even more REALLY BIG secrets locked inside party headquarters which you should know about .  For starters, more and more legitimate accusations of cheating in the race for state party chair have been piling up over the weekend against Andria Tupola's campaign -- a campaign being led by outgoing state chair Fritz Rohlfing and his various henchmen in coordination with Tupola herself in order to overcome the rival campaign of RINO Miriam Hellreich and Liberal Pat "Abortion Barbie" Saiki's handpicked Manchurian Candidate Shirlene Ostrov.

The extreme level of cheating and manipulation by Tupola operative Rohlfing began last year when the decision was made by Fritzy Boy in violation of state party rules to move this weekend's state convention from Oahu to Kauai in order to depress participation.  Then there was the widespread manipulation and cheating of the precinct caucuses and district elections by Rohlfing's Tupola campaign aides; cheating which has continued through improper appointment of district chairs and stuffing of delegate rosters.

"CANDIDATE OUTREACH": But now, the cheating in this RINO Civil War of 2017 has devolved into the down and dirty exploitation of Team Tupola/Rohlfing's insider advantages at the party's headquarters and total disregard for rules or even fairness.  The latest example is how Rohlfing has provided the Tupola for State Chair campaign complete access to contact information of both registered and unregistered delegates to the state convention for months now , but the same access has been refused to Tupola's opponent, Shirlene Ostrov, the vice president of the Oahu League of RINO Women.  Indeed, Ostrov supporters have become increasingly strident in their protests in recent hours because when Ostrov was finally furnished a list of delegates, the list was received WITHOUT any phone numbers or e-mail addresses .  One could say that Ostrov was put at a complete competitive disadvantage, with Tupola operatives already using delegate phone numbers from party databases to make recruitment calls for several weeks or more already.

Now, as a full-time ambulance chaser for hire, sleazebag attorney Fritz Rohlfing is VERY aware that our state party's rules are a lot like Swiss cheese.  Some of his cheating clearly breaks the rules, while other manipulations exploit areas where our party rules are ridiculously silent.  For example, unlike the common ethics laws in government which prevent county, state and federal politicians from using staff members to perform campaign work, there is no rule against Chairman Rohlfing using party funds to hire some dude for the job of our party's executive director, only to have that guy spend his time on the clock using party resources to campaign in favor of Rohlfing's favorite candidate and fellow church member Andria Tupola.

  As disgusting and sleazy and corrupt and unfair as that sounds, this particular move is perfectly legit.  And you have Ostrov's own campaign managers Pat Saiki, Miriam Hellreich and Barbara Marumoto to thank for the absence of rules against such corruption -- because that's how they've played the game (and won) for decades . . . until recently.  Usually these ladies from the Oahu League are in the catbird seat calling the shots and they get to abuse party resources to further their agenda in order to elect their puppet party officer candidates.  But Tupola operative Fritz Rohlfing and his minions have kept these insider advantages away from Ostrov operative Miriam Hellreich and her minions, causing an epic cat fight.

Hey, if 'turnabout is fair play', then this honor among thieves is probably why we've heard nothing from Ostrov's camp about any possible legal action should Tupola and her embarrassingly lame slate of state GOP officer candidates** win on Saturday.  Live by the sword (of cheating, deceit, and subterfuge), die by that same sword.

[** For the record, neither Tupola nor Ostrov are helping their already flimsy candidacies for state chair by announcing the weakest imaginable slates of running mates .  HIRA will address this laughing matter very soon, even though the decline of the GOP in Democrat-ruled Hawaii is no laughing matter .]

At the heart of this REALLY BIG CHEATING SCANDAL eating away at our party's integrity is a guy named Jack James .  Sure, you know who Fritz Rohlfing is.   But who the heck is Jack James?  Well, he's the shameless, zero-integrity guy who Rohlfing hired late last year (with YOUR donations) for the apparent purpose of spending lots of his time helping Tupola to win on Saturday.

Trust HIRA when we tell you that the last six months since the November 2016 election have been completely wasted by the Hawaii GOP over this RINO Civil War for control of the near-dead party organization which just canceled its annual fundraiser at a loss of $140,000 in projected revenue.  Like HIRA, you'll just have to get used to the fact that Election 2018 has been sacrificed on the altars of Tupola and Ostrov and their puppets. Yes, Saturday's winner will inherit a financially depleted and operationally dysfunctional basket-case organization on life support.

And here's the BIG secret: The RINO factions pushing both Tupola and Ostrov are the very incompetent liberal do-nothings DIRECTLY responsible for our party's steady decline while the rest of the country gets more Republican.

In fact, Hawaii's Great RINO Civil War of 2017 now playing out across the state only involves a few hundred people , thanks to the decline of the Hawaii GOP under the disastrous management of RINO's and closet Democrats.  However, those few hundred people hold the fate of Hawaii's 1.4 million residents in their hands , since Democrats have no plans of giving up power voluntarily or abandoning their failed policies after 63 long years .

RINO CIVIL WAR :  What started out as a simple, yet fundamental, disagreement between formerly united RINO's and closet Democrats over the future of our party's costly, poorly located and underutilized headquarters in Kakaako has turned into a slightly wider battle over sagging party finances and a tug of war between the self-important Oahu League of RINO Women and the ever-shrinking GOP minority caucus at the State House ( home to all five of Hawaii's only elected Republicans ).

Putting aside the minor differences of money and headquarters, both of these factions want to continue pursuing the bizarre vision of a GOP organization which celebrates going along with Democrats rather than fighting them.   Kelii Akina recently lamented in a very subtle way our GOP's silence about Democrats as " the lack of dissent that allows tax-and-spend policies to move smoothly through the Hawaii Legislature ."  Damn, that IS subtle.  Akina is politely saying that Republicans don't do jack squat to lead a fight ever against Democrat policies.  Put another way, the very elected Republicans we are counting on -- whether led by Beth Fukumoto or Andria Tupola -- simply sit there and do nothing . . . just like Tupola's champion Fritz Rohlfing has done for the past four years (2 as Honolulu county GOP chair and then 2 as State GOP chair). Nothing, nothing, nothing.

NOW, AGAIN, WHO THE HECK IS JACK JAMES?? :    HIRA has received many reports in recent weeks that -- when the door at party HQ gets locked and the lights are dimmed and Rohlfing's towelboy and full-blown RINO Jack James (a.k.a. our party's useless Executive Director) has made all his "candidate outreach" calls to recruit delegates for fellow church member Tupola (with the full knowledge of Tupola) -- James changes into his pajamas and has been curling up nightly on a futon in the loft of the commercially zoned party headquarters on Kapiolani Blvd.

If these reports are true about the state party's overpaid executive director, then not only has Jack James been breaking the law , but the alleged illegal residency at party HQ exposes his improper holding of a district chairmanship and improper handling of delegates for the state convention.

Wait, what ?   C'mon, WHO the heck is this incompetent con man " Jack James " and how on earth did he get the one paying job at the beleaguered and financially devastated Hawaii Republican Party??

Well, as Hawaii News Now reported last week in its top story:  "In 2016, as the general election loomed, the state Republican Party ran out of cash and had to release its executive director ."  YES, THE PARTY COMPLETELY RAN OUT OF CASH ONE MONTH BEFORE THE ELECTION.  So, for the record, Jack James' predecessor Marcia Tagavilla , the highly paid executive director from 2015-2016, got laid off.  So, she didn't really leave her job to 'pursue parenthood' as party members were told.  It wasn't a matter of an unpaid 'maternity leave' as Fritz Rohlfing told his fellow party officers in a manner which raised legal flags left and right after announcing Tupola's operative Rohlfing forced a pregnant girl out onto the street so some dude named Jack James could get the job.

Instead, last week's HNN story reveals that the Rohlfing-Tupola gang simply couldn't afford to pay Tagavilla any longer . . . with Rohlfing ally Andria Tupola admitting on TV last week that: "The month before the election, when people had to find poll watchers, they had last-minute questions on how to win the race, there was no one at the headquarters ."

PAY ATTENTION NOW: Fast forward only a few short days after the layoff of Tagavilla and a few short days BEFORE the 2016 General Election .  On October 24th, Rohlfing's pal and fellow church member Jack James posted a desperate plea for financial help on Facebook ( below ).  Then, in the blink of an eye, the party led by the crooked Rohlfing-Tupola gang ( the same state party organization which was TOO BROKE to pay a full-time executive director only days earlier ) suddenly did an about-face .  The flat-okole broke party suddenly had MORE THAN ENOUGH MONEY to offer Jack James a full time job starting almost right away .   SAY WHAT?!?

In fact, after only a short time on the job, James was reportedly given an $8,000 pay raise by the very generous Tupola-Rohlfing gang ( generous with other people's money, that is ).  Yet the party has been running a deficit and losing thousands each month since Tupola campaign operative Fritz Rohlfing gave away precious party resources to hire the inexperienced, campaign-losing political hack and failed lighting salesman Jack James.  In fact, Jack James was doing such a horrible job selling tickets to the now-canceled Lincoln Dinner that the event was thought to be on the verge of cancellation even BEFORE the keynote speaker dropped out.

And now, Jack James is the same political crony whom Andria Tupola told a GOP gathering only a few days ago when asked that she REFUSES to fire or lay him off should she and her slate win the state chair position and other executive officer posts at the upcoming state convention on Kauai.

That's right, Andria Tupola apparently wants to keep crony Jack James on the job ; squandering YOUR money so he can continue failing and failing and failing.  As the leader of the party of fiscal responsibility, Tupola is willing to keep her campaign operative Jack James on the job despite his failure to raise the $15,000 per month in funds he promised (in his terms of hire) and despite James' infamous role in trying to destroy the Oahu County Republican Party by inventing the phony allegation ( which Tupola operatives James and Rohlfing sent as a press release and a mass e-mail to party members) falsely claiming that the Campaign Spending Commission had launched an investigation into the Oahu GOP -- which was 1,000% untrue and invented from the whole cloth of Jack James' own shirt .  That's how desperate Tupola's campaign was and is to win at all costs -- willing to destroy the credibility of the GOP with the news media and the party's own membership .

And Jack James is the same Andria Tupola campaign operative who BET THE FARM on the now cancelled Lincoln Dinner at the Democrat-run Honolulu Convention Center, resulting in lost income of $140,000 and huge potentially unrecoverable expenses of tens of thousands of dollars.  Reports to HIRA indicate that the Hawaii GOP only has pocket change left in available funds for operations .  Yes, Jack James and Andria Tupola and Fritz Rohlfing are three sides of the SAME coin . Expect these and other facts to be played down and/or totally ignored this Saturday.

That's why it comes as no surprise that East Honolulu friends of state GOP vice-chair Barbara Marumoto informed HIRA late last night that  Fritz Rohlfing's pro-Tupola executive committee secretly voted last week   AGAINST  a proposal to give Jack James his two weeks notice and his walking papers .  Many wanted James fired, but Tupola's allies have kept James in his job so he can help get his future boss Andria Tupola elected.

Yes, Rohlfing and the rest of Team Tupola are committed to destroying the state party by backing a loser and continuing to spend far more than James has been bringing in.

WAIT, THERE'S A LOT MORE TO THIS STORY ABOUT ANDRIA TUPOLA'S #1 CAMPAIGN OPERATIVE . . .

. . . coming tomorrow:  "Jack James, Part 2"