GOP offers political counterweight in American Samoa
October 13, 2005

By T. Graham Paterson

Having lived in American Samoa, I enjoy following the Samoan election process. Looking back to 2004 election results, an interesting story presents itself. Eight-term congressional delegate Faleomavaega Eni Hunkin is weakening as a candidate, winning in 2004 with less than 55%. What does this tell us about the upcoming 2006 election for delegate?

The individual to watch next year is Aumua Amata.

While she did not win her election on November 2 in American Samoa, the achievement of Aumua Amata (known as Amata Coleman Radewagen in Washington) could easily be compared to Melisssa Bean s second attempt victory over entrenched incumbent Representative Phil Crane in 2004.

Although her opponent, eight-term congressional delegate Faleomavaega Eni Hunkin at seemingly every opportunity reminded the voters she has tried and failed to beat him now five times, far from being a perennial also-ran, she appears to have bolstered her political credentials substantially with her 2004 showing and promises to be a force in territorial politics for some time to come.

Consider these facts:


*** While the three other incumbent non-voting delegates to the U.S. House of Representatives, all women, were winning their contests handily, Faleomavaega continued to struggle to pull his seat out of the marginal category (seats won with less than 55% of the vote). Virgin Islands Delegate Donna Christiansen (D) beat both a Republican and a credible independent challenger with 66.4% of the vote, District of Columbia Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) won a 92% victory in her contest and Guam Delegate Madeleine Bordallo (D) has proven so popular, she was unopposed, winning 100% of the ballots cast in her race. By way of contrast, Faleomavaega won with only 54.9% of the vote.

*** Aside from one incumbent each in Oregon (54.5%), South Dakota (53.7%) and Texas (51%), Faleomavaega, with 54.9% had the weakest showing of any Democrat incumbent who won re-election to Congress in the general election.

*** Faleomavaega's share of the vote was another in a string of poor showings since 1994, when he won a four-way race with 63.8% of the vote. Since that time, a majority of the voters have voted against him three times in general elections, forcing him into a runoff each time and his 54.9% showing last year in a two-way race was only a statistically insignificant one tenth of a percent better than his showing in a two-way runoff three years ago---a clear indication his vote has stagnated.

*** By contrast, Amata has nearly closed the gap, more than doubling her vote over 1994, when she made her initial run.

*** In every election in which Amata has been on the ballot since 1996, Faleomavaega either has been forced into a runoff or been held to a marginal victory.

*** In the 1996, 2000 and 2002 runoffs, Faleomavaega's challengers were unsuccessful in attracting Amata's vote. Last year, by contrast, Amata demonstrated she could capture a significant portion of the vote won by others in previous years.

*** Amata won more votes in 2004 than any challenger in the history of the seat, which always has been held by a Democrat. Moreover, she even outscored the runner-up in the three-way governor's race that was on the same ballot and beat the gubernatorial challenger's two-way runoff total.

*** Amata won seven of the territory's 17 electoral districts and came within 75 votes of winning an outright majority of the districts.

*** Going into the 2004 election, Republicans nationwide held 229 House seats to the Democrats' 206 plus five delegate seats for a total of 211 Democrat seats. For the first time in history, Republicans expanded their majority for a second consecutive election and now have 232 to 203 for the Democrats.

*** In a post election editorial, THE WASHINGTON POST said that in most House races "there was no serious doubt about the outcome:" 95% of the "races were decided in 20-pt-plus landslides." Those figures include the three other delegates seeking re-election. On the other hand, Faleomavaega was in the five percent of the races decided by fewer than 10 percent.

*** The major party national campaign committees consider incumbents vulnerable to defeat in the ensuing election if, like Faleomavaega, they win less than 55% in the previous election. These so-called marginal seats are on each party's endangered species list. In addition to four newly elected first-time Members, there are only four veteran Democrats on that endangered list, and most senior of them is Faleomavaega. Chet Edwards (D-TX), a seven-termer, Darlene Hooley (D-OR), a four-termer and Stephanie Herseth (D-SD), a second termer, are the other three.

*** Including Faleomavaega, there are only 10 Members of Congress from both parties remaining in the class sworn into office January 3, 1989. Of them, nine won re-election with more than 60% of the vote, seven won with 70% or more, three won with 80% or better, one with 97% and one was unopposed. At 54.9% of the vote, Faleomavaega by far had the poorest showing in his class and ran more than 15 points behind the pace of the next lowest Democrat in his class.

Only two Republican incumbents lost their seats last year, including the most senior Republican in the House, Rep. Philip Crane (IL), on whose staff, ironically, Amata once served. Crane also was the keynote speaker at the organizational convention of the Republican Party of American Samoa in 1986 and passed through the territory more recently as chairman of the House trade subcommittee and vice chairman of the full ways and means committee.

In its November 4 post-election analysis of Crane's defeat at the hands of a young woman, Melissa Bean, the respected and widely consulted independent political newsletter "Hotline" reported this from THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE:

"The political people 'began to take notice' after Bean managed to win 43% of the vote [in a first run against Crane in 2002]. After she was nominated again in 2004, she attracted 'considerably more attention,' especially after congressional GOPers spoke out about their 'frustration over Crane's work ethic and commitment' to the district." In contrast, Bean's effort was described as "a campaign of 'grocery stores and coffee shops, train stations and high schools'---four years of mornings 'spent in staff meetings, afternoons shaking a hundred hands and nights dialing phones to ask for a little help."

As international trade chairman, Crane was particularly vulnerable to charges of excess travel overseas and away from his district. In the end, Melissa Bean turned her 2002 43%-57% defeat into a 52%-48% last year.

Even before the ballots were counted in American Samoa on November 2, Faleomavaega made headlines abroad by calling for a "Polynesian Union" and later urged the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat to intervene in the electoral crisis in French Polynesia. The delegate, who since has returned to Washington, also has been quoted as saying his top priority in the 109th Congress is to seek resolution of the political status of the Indonesian province of Papua.

Meanwhile, Amata has remained in American Samoa. With the territory having no Republican among its top political leaders, she has established a local office as a point of contact so that Republicans in Washington can be accessed through her when necessary. Her credentials with President Bush, who handpicked her as an assistant secretary of his convention four years ago and after taking office appointed her to a three-year term on his advisory commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, are beyond question and her ties to the Republican Congress, where she has served on the House leadership staff since 1997, are impeccable as well.

Amata also has two strong allies in the House Republican Conference with Resident Commissioner Luis Fortuno elected in 2004 as the first Republican to win Puerto Rico's delegate seat in a century and Republican Bobby Jindal, whose parents migrated from India, arriving in the nation's capital as Louisiana's first Asian Pacific American congressman.

During her campaign, Amata argued that she would be able to advance rapidly in the Republican Conference because minorities are underrepresented and her argument has been bolstered by the election of Amata's friends Jindal and Fortuno as Republican freshman class president and vice president, respectively. Those positions give the two men seats at the leadership table, said Conference Chairman Deborah Pryce, thus giving Amata even more clout in Congress. Faleomavaega, on the other hand, is buried in an avalanche of minorities on his side of the aisle and, despite 16 years' service in Congress, only two years ago rose to the vice chairmanship of the Asia-Pacific Caucus---another group that has been all Democrats.

With all of her assets, whether Amata, like Melissa Bean, can turn a close race against an aging, entrenched---but demonstrably weak---incumbent into a victory two years from now remains to be seen. But, in the meantime, local Republicans no doubt will enjoy their pipeline to Washington.

Note: T. Graham Paterson is a sucessful business and political analyst.


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