LIHU‘E — Even though he is not on the campaign trail this year, Mayor Bryan J. Baptiste is still stumping. “I hope to support candidates who have similar platforms, beliefs,” Baptiste said when asked what kind of role or roles
LIHU‘E — Even though he is not on the campaign trail this year, Mayor Bryan J. Baptiste is still stumping.
“I hope to support candidates who have similar platforms, beliefs,” Baptiste said when asked what kind of role or roles he would take in campaigns of other candidates this election year.
Baptiste, a Republican even though he was elected to both the council and mayor’s office in nonpartisan elections, is in the middle of a four-year term, so he has no election of his own to be concerned with this year.
Whether or not he will take high-profile positions in the various local campaigns has not yet been determined, he said during The Garden Island’s candidate luncheon held Tuesday at The Terrace Restaurant at Kauai Lagoons.
Most likely, the support he’ll lend to candidates who share his vision, beliefs and platform will be “word of mouth,” and encouraging his supporters to vote for candidates he supports, he said.
He posed for a picture with Mamo Cummings, a Republican challenger of state Rep. Mina Morita, D-North Kaua‘i, when Cummings filed papers for her first bid at elected office, and attended at least one organizational meeting for first-time County Council candidate Tim Bynum.
“Tim works for me, and Mamo is a good friend,” he said of those specific candidates he supports.
Paul C. Curtis, associate editor, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net.
