Letter to Mike Gabbard from Ed Case:

Mike:

In recent weeks I have been told several times of representations by you or your wife that you are ethnically Native Hawaiian. Please confirm whether you are or are not of indigenous Hawaiian ethnicity. If I do not hear back from you by tomorrow, Thursday, at 4:30PM, I will assume that you are not and will state the same to those to whom you or your wife have otherwise represented.

With aloha,

Ed Case

Letter to Ed Case from Mike Gabbard

Aloha Ed,

Your question is nothing more than an indirect way of trying to tell people, that “Mike Gabbard is not a Native Hawaiian. Don’t vote for him.” Of course your question is also a claim that my wife and I are liars—that we’re going around telling people I’m Native Hawaiian. Of course nothing could be further from the truth. Neither my wife nor I have ever in our lives told anybody I’m Native Hawaiian.

Anyway, the ethics of your campaign continue to go downhill. For the past several months you’ve been engaging in a not-so-subtle campaign of religious bigotry and now you’re adding racism to your strategy.

Every single one of your emails has been nothing but an attempt to make people believe that I or someone in my family is a liar.

Of course it bothers me that you are constantly implying that I’m a liar, whether it’s about me being an educator or about my religion, but I tolerate it.

However, I will no longer tolerate your campaign of character assassination against my family members—including my deceased father who’s not here to defend himself. And my children, most of whom are not even involved in politics.

For the first time I heard a tape of your radio ad that you’ve evidently been playing for quite awhile. In this ad you make the following statements about myself:

“He doesn’t want you to know who he is, what he’s done, what he believes. He doesn’t want you asking questions about him, and for good reason.”

You’re obviously saying I’m hiding something and that I’m a boogie man of some kind.

Could you please be honest enough to tell me and the people straight out what it is you know about me you think I’m hiding? Why don’t you stop all the innuendo and just talk straight? If you have something to say to me or any of my family members, why don’t you just say it? You owe it to me, my family, the people of Hawaii to say what it is I believe or have done or who I am that I am trying to hide. What is the “good reason” why I “don’t want you asking questions...” I’m challenging you straight out here, Ed Case. Whatever you want to say, put it on the table. If you don’t tell me and the people of Hawaii within the next 24 hours exactly what it is you’re referring to and implying with all your statements and in your ads, then we can only conclude that you are admitting you’re doing nothing but engaging in a baseless campaign of character assassination.

One more question. In your first letter of questions/accusations, you asked:

“How many children do you have?

What are their names and ages?

Where are they living and what are they doing?”

Could you please tell me why you’re asking me these questions and what relevance it has to the issues facing our people? In other words, Ed, what exactly is it you want to say about my children and their names? What is it exactly you are trying to say between the lines? Why don’t you come out into the light and just make your accusations straight up front instead of engaging in all this innuendo?

Sincerely,

Mike

VOTE 2004!...