KEY POINTS:
The Pacific region could benefit if Democrats Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton win the 2008 United States presidential election, says a visiting Hawaiian leader.
At a Pacific trade lunch meeting in Auckland yesterday Mufi Hannemann, Mayor of Honolulu, said both candidates had strong connections to Hawaii, which would help in their understanding of Pacific issues.
Mr Hannemann, who has Samoan heritage, said Senator Obama was born in Honolulu, where he graduated from high school and Senator Clinton often visited the state.
He said their knowledge of Hawaii would help him make his case for the Pacific to Congress and the areas in which the region needed assistance.
America also needed advocates in the Pacific region, Mr Hannemann said.
Mr Hannemann, the first native-born Mayor of Honolulu in 40 years, said one reason it had taken so long to get into a position of authority was that he had refused to change his identity as a Polynesian.
He had been advised to change his name or use his middle name Francis, but resisted.
Mr Hannemann said Hawaii had been a good place for all sorts of ethnic groups to break through into the mainland American political arena.
He had served in the Carter, Reagan, Clinton and George W. Bush Administrations.
He said he saw potential for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Ministry of Maori Affairs to work together.
Mr Hannemann was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Victoria University of Wellington in 1977, but he said that might not have happened if he had believed everything people said about what Samoans could achieve. He was also the first Samoan to attend Harvard University, where he was preceded by the first Tongan.
