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Politics got very sharp and very caustic.

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And yet, when you’re meeting people--
and the Republicans and the Democrats

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were saying terrible things
about each other on the stump.

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They’d meet each other afterwards,
and they’d be friends.

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And so, the island way is
that you don’t go too far,

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because you know you’re going
to meet the guy the next day.

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And so, these things were done
with a certain tongue-in-cheek attack.

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And there were all sorts of funny stories
about some politician hiring

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a Hawaiian speaker to speak for him
in Hawaiian districts.

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And how the Hawaiian speaker would say
what a bum guy this was in Hawaiian.

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You shouldn’t vote for him.

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And I have a feeling
those things really happened.

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Ben Dillingham,
who was from the cousin fruit fly family,

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really appealed to the voters
by going to a lot of districts

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and singing songs like
“Three Little Fishes” instead of speaking.

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And he became a very popular candidate
despite all the love of the tail twisting

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of the Dillinghams.

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And he won.

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So, but it was a very colorful
kind of politics and, of course,

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politics were also interspersed by hulas.

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And adults--
candidates 60, 50, 60 years old,

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male candidates
and female candidates would--

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well, they’re mostly male candidates,
would stand up and do hulas.

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Well, to a boy from Pennsylvania,
this is absolutely unbelievable,

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that a man, 50, would stand up
in front of a crowd and dance.

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But it was tremendously appealing, too.