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I was fortunate to spend about half my pre-college years in Hawai`i, nearly all of which time coincided with the three terms of Hawai`i's longest serving elected governor, George R. Ariyoshi. And so although he and I have some significant political and philosophical disagreements, I enjoyed this chance to learn a little more about a man who was always something of a feature of my early life, and put some vaguely remembered controversies into better focus. 200), as though social progress can only occur through the hand of government, and even then only if that hand is Democrat.

That brings us to an issue I wish Ariyoshi had addressed more directly -- an issue that is, in fact, the central fact of political life in the Fiftieth State: the state is ruled (it's not too strong a word) by an 'iron triangle' of Big Labor, Democratic Party politicians, and a bloated State bureaucracy. Ariyoshi admits (p. 199) that Hawai`i is essentially a one-party state, but --typically, though not entirely incorrectly -- blames the GOP for their own irrelevance.

He breezily dismisses criticisms of Hawai`i's regulate/socialize/bureaucratize/tax tradition as 'continental modes of thinking' (p. 126), without explaining why a free market is somehow unsuited for the Island State. Indeed, he notes that 'In Hawaii we have a tradition of highly centralized government that can be traced to Kamehameha's wars of conquest and the formation of the Hawaiian kingdom' (p. 128) -- an argument that reduces to little more than 'We do it this way because we've always done it this way.' Throughout the book, whether he is addressing the 1970s 'energy crisis,' economic development, affordable housing, diversification of agriculture, limiting the adverse impact of tourism and 'in-migration,' and the rest, the solution always -- always -- involves government.