While relaxing on the 23rd of December, I went on Twitter to see what was going on. It was filled with typical banter on what was going on in Arizona (the Kari Lake court case trying to overturn her loss to Katie Hobbs for AZ governor) and the noise about the “omnibus” budget bill (the $1.7 billion budget bill passed in the last hours of the current Congress).
But in one of the entries, I saw that Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz posted an interesting entry. All it said was this.
(For the record, all screenshots were done by this blogger, for this post, all photo credit goes to Stan Fichtman, Politics Hawaii with Stan Fichtman)
Feeling that a post like this would just bring out the vile in people, I ignored the initial post and went about my day. Later, in the evening, I returned to this post and opened it up to see what was said, or how much banter there was between Schatz and the rest of Twitter word.
Turns out, the posts (linked here) had some very insightful questions, with some answers that, in some ways, astounded me for their frankness and, in some cases, humor.
Here are some of the highlights that this blogger saw in the hour-long Twitter discussion Schatz had with people.
Schatz would not tell people what his favorite island was, but he did note what was his least favorite.
In the area of elected politics, Schatz told people that: He did not plan out his political career to be a Senator, that he entered politics because of climate issues, and that he has no desire to run for president.
On the item where he said he would not run for President, he said it a few times throughout the session. In Hawaii, we might want to keep an eye on that and remember what he said, should he change his mind.
Talking about climate, a surprising answer had to do with Schatz’s thoughts about investing in nuclear power as part of a de-carbonization policy.
Schatz seems to have a similar view of Politics Hawaii with Stan Fichtman when it comes to what one needs to read to figure out Hawaii’s politics.
- And Schatz also has a viewpoint on tourism, answering questions about whether Hawaii is still welcoming tourists after being told: “we didn’t want them.”
He is so helpful to potential tourists he invites them to “direct message” them about places to go to on Oahu.
As for Schatz’s view on newly-installed Governor Josh Green. He seems positive to Green in this response to a question.
And finally, in the “did you know this” category, it would seem that, in the US Senate, members are only allowed to drink certain beverages on the floor. (And you thought the 60-vote threshold was weird already)
As for how much to read into these answers from Hawaii’s Senior Senator, it should be noted that there were no “negative” questions asked of him personally. That tells me either his nascent opposition in Hawaii was not paying attention to what was going on Twitter that day, or that he was able to remove those questions before they got posted.
Now, let us see if this example of reaching out takes hold with other politicians, and how they will interact with people when the Communication Director in their office is away.