Hawaii was naturally shaken by the untimely death of  popular Kauai Mayor Bryan Baptiste this week.

We expect our elected leaders to stay around forever, and generally they do. Were it not for term limits, office-holders in Hawaii likely could hold on to their post for life, or at least until they decide to volunarily give it up. That’s certainly true in Congress, where no full-term incumbent has ever been turned out of office through election. In fact, the only transitions in Congress were when a member left voluntarily (Oren Long, Patsy Mink, Cec Heftel) for retirement or to seek another office) or through death, which was the case when Sen. Spark Matsunaga and Rep. Patsy Mink died in office.

We sometimes look down on other countries with their “presidents-for-life” and dynastic politics. But in our own way, we have the same system here. Is it just human nature to want to hold on to what we know, including elected politicians?

Now that favorite son Barack Obama has clinched the Democratic Presidential nomination, curiosity about the candidate and what made him what he is will only become more intense.

One key, probably still not fully explored, is the impact of Obama’s childhood and schooling in Hawaii as well as his years in Indonesia with his mother and step-father.

He talks about those two experiences in his first book. But the biographical focus (and probably rightly so) has been on Obama’s years as a community organizer and then up-and-coming politician in Chicago. That’s where Obama the candidate took shape.

Still, the impact of those earlier days at Punahou and in Indonesia cannot be ignored. All that will eventually get fleshed out. But for the moment, one of the best reflections on what it means to be an “outsider” growing up and going to school in Hawaii appeared in the most unlikely place: The Portland Oregonian.

The article is by an emeritus professor of English at Southern Oregon University named Michael Baughman. It is a sensitive look at the “process of maturation” that Baughman believes he and Obama might share.

Read the article HERE. Do you think it helps explain to the rest of the world what the experience of growing up in multi-cultural Hawaii means? Does it help others understand who Obama is?

Byzantine party rules control the votes of most of a state’s delegation to the national convention. The bulk are allocated according to the results of earlier primaries or (as in Hawaii’s case) caucuses.

But there is just a little room for a delegate or two whose presence is not specifically dictated by the results of the caucus. One such, however, is the “unpledged” superdelegate position selected by the party central committee following the regular convention. Unpledged is in quotes because the position is not allotted according to caucus results, but the folks running for the postion are quite clear on who they back.

In this case, the leading contenders for that slot were former Judge James Burns, son of the late Gov. John A. Burns and Jennifer Goto Sabas, an aide to Sen Dan Inouye. Burns was asked personally by Obama (they’ve golfed together when Obama visited Hawaii) to run, and he made no secret of where his vote would go. Sabas, naturally, would be sensitive to the wishes of his boss, a strong Clinton backer.

Burns won that contest in squeaker by just a very few votes over Sabas, suggesting that the inner heirarchy of the party is far from a monolithic pro-Obama machine one might have thought it would become on caucus night.

While the national presidential contest  between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama goes on, Hawaii Democrats at their state convention this weekend went out of their way to keep that battle from burbling to the surface .

Just about every speaker went out of the way way to emphasize the importance of “unity” and getting together politically before the national convention. That was certainly the message from U.S.. Sens. Dan Akaka (in person) and Daniel Inouye (via taped video).

Inouye is a resolute Clinton backer, but he made it clear that “once the dust settles,” i.e., when likely nominee Obama is officially recognized, he will be on board.  Akaka, who only belatedly came out for Obama, said there is enough “polarization” around the country already  and that it’s time for Democrats, at any rate, to rally around a single candidate and set their sights on Republicans.

The one place where Obama-Clinton tensions might have openly surfaced was on a proposed resolution to bind  so-called free agent “Superdelegates” to vote according to the will of party voters. On Hawaii, they went overwhelmingly for Obama. While the resolution was largely symbolic, it might have created hard feelings. So the proposal was defeated on the convention floor even though the bulk of the delegates were Obama backers.

It seems as if any potential small gains wouldn’t have been worth the bad feeling.

Otherwise, the convention was more-or-less a love fest. We’ll see how long that lasts once the campaign has come and gone.

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In fact, at least one delegate was lamenting that there wasn’t enough  tussling and fighting at the convention.

Former Gov. John Waihee, who will attend the national convention as a Clinton delegate, good-humoredly was complaining to anyone who would listen that the convention needed a bigger dose of  dissent and fighting. His point: The folks who run things (who now include a fair number of former dissidents) do better when they are severely tested by the next generation.

Call it  a test by fire and Waihee was right: There wasn’t much of it this time around.

They argued over genetically modified crops. They debated the pros and cons of the SuperFerry. They wrangled over the controversial issue of vacation rentals and bed and breakfast businesses.

But by far the most sensitive issue on the first full day of the Democratic convention was the prospect of a new state Constitutional Convention. It may not have produced the most public talk, but for many delegates it was the issue with the greatest long-term political consequences.

The dividing line is rather clear: Some of the younger delegates and reform-minded Democrats believe it is time to take another look at our Constitution, which has not been taken up by a convention since 1978.

Others fear a constitutional convention might open the door for repeal, or at least the watering down, of constitutional rights hard won by the 1978 convention.

That played out in a resolution which talked about the need to educate voters on the possibility that precious social, environmental, workers and cultural rights could be “imperiled” by a new convention. A minority version would have tamed that down by throwing  out most of the apocalyptic language. The pro- convention folks also called on public funding of the con-con progress, including paying a “living wage” to constitutional delegates, to ensure it would be a “Peoples’ ConCon.”

Here’s why this was important, both to labor delegates and others as well as the “reformers”: The fault lines on this issue in some ways reflect a larger concern about the Democratic Party, both in Hawaii and across the country.

Is it most concerned with protecting hard-won rights and privileges, or is it interested in changing things toward an uncertain, but perhaps even better future?

Those themes are part of the national conversation about who should be the Democratic nominee for president as well.

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That’s all for Saturday. Watch for more reports on Sunday!