NS Nation Name: Lavan
Character Name: Olivia Nalani Hiraya Calalo-Walker
Character Gender: Gorl
Character Age: 49 (born July 23rd, 1959)
Character Height: 5'8
Character Weight: 154 pounds
Character Position/Role/Job:
- Candidate for 2008 United States Presidential Election
- Board Member, Republican Leadership Committee (since 2006)
- Governor of Hawai'i (since 2002)
- Prosecutor of Honolulu (1996-2002)
- Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Hawai'i, Criminal Division (1990-1996)
- Assistant United States Attorney for the Central District of California, Criminal Division (1986-1990)
- Assistant San Francisco District Attorney (1984-1986)
Character Country/State of Birth: Honolulu, Hawai'i
Character State of Residence: Honolulu, Hawai'i
Character Party Affiliation: Republican
Faceclaim: Nancy Binay
Main Strengths:
- Highly popular in Hawai'i: Calalo's reelection victory was the largest margin of victory in Hawai'ian history, and she has enjoyed consistently high approval ratings during most of her gubernatorial tenure. This is due to a strong economic rebound in Hawai'i during her term, and a perceived decline in corruption and government waste.
- As a Republican governor of one of the bluest states in the nation, her reputation for bipartisanship and ability to balance a conservative ideology and a Democratic supermajority in the legislature has benefited her greatly.
- While not widely known, Calalo has a certain amount of name recognition and respect amongst Beltway players and dedicated politicos
- Skilled manager, compromiser, and dealmaker.
- Young, attractive, crusading reformer who knows how to use her past as a tough prosecutor to project an image of power
Main Weaknesses:
- Republican Governor of probably the most heavily Democratic state in the nation. While Calalo has good personal relationships with the Hawai'i Legislature, her reputation as a dealmaker is mostly based on the fact that she
has to be in order to get anything done. The Legislature has occasionally stymied large parts of her agenda since 2002.
- Low name recognition outside Hawai'i, dedicated politicos, and Asian-American communities, which will certainly impact her chances as a Presidential candidate.
- Being a young, attractive, reform-minded woman of color from a tiny state does not endear Calalo to support or friendship from the conservative establishment or the main body of the GOP. Additionally, there is a not-insignifigant contingent of voters who will simply not vote for her either due to her heritage or her gender or both.
- Politically inexperienced, especially in running a campaign outside of a tiny state.
Biography:
Alphonso Calalo (1929-present) and Kanani Haukea (1934-present) met in 1954, when Kanani was working as a waitress at a diner in Honolulu. Alphonso, a law student at the University of Hawai'i, frequented the establishment, and struck up a relationship with the pretty young waitress over time. They were married in 1958, and their first child, Olivia, was born a year later. They also had three other children: Alphonso Junior (1960-present), Luis (1961-present), and Jorge (1965-present). Life in the Calalo household was easy, and cheerful. Olivia remembers this time as the happiest in her life, and maintains a close relationship with her parents.
Alphonso was a career climber, and worked his way up to being appointed Attorney General of Hawai'i in the 1970s. Olivia was very close to get father, and often spent afternoons "helping" him in the office when she was younger--meaning, she would sort-of organize his files in order for him to get some time to spend with his daughter. As she grew up, Olivia was a sporty, athletic girl, with consistently good grades. She played soccer and ran track for her high school teams, just a few years after the passage of Title IX. She also decided during this time that she would be a lawyer like her father, although she went to the mainland for her studies. In 1977, she began attending University of Southern California, where she graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Sociology in 1981. From 1981 to 1984, Olivia attended the University of San Francisco Law School. She graduated near the top of her class, and was hired by the San Francisco District Attorney shortly after graduation.
As Assistant DA, Olivia's main focus was on criminal law. She assisted in the prosecution of several violent crimes, most notably the trials of serial killers Leonard Lake and Charles Ng. She had a reputation for her quick mind and strong sense of justice, which she claims she inherited from her father. After 26 months at the San Francisco office, she was hired as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, and moved to Los Angeles in 1986. Her main purview was in the Public Corruption and Civil Rights section, where she assisted in the prosecution and takedown of corrupt public officials and civil rights violations. In 1987, Olivia's work friend Janice set Olivia and her brother, LAPD officer Tom Walker (1961-present), up on a blind date. The pair hit it off quickly, and were engaged within eight months. In 1989, they were married. Olivia insisted on keeping her last name, but agreed to hyphenate it with Tom's on official documents while still going by Calalo unofficially. Olivia and Tom have three sons and a daughter: Gregory (1990-present), Diego (1993-present), Hector (1995-present), and Angelina (1999-present).
While Olivia was pregnant with Gregory, the Calalo-Walker household decided to leave Los Angeles due to the rising crime and cost of living. Instead, the relocated to Olivia's childhood home in Honolulu, where her parents still lived. Tom got a job with the Honolulu police, and Olivia (after maternity leave) found employment with the U.S. Attorney for the District of Hawai'i. She was hired as a Senior Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Public Corruption and Fraud Office.
Olivia worked happily for the U.S. Attorney's office for six years, and reintegrated into Honolulu society. Her father had retired from his political aspirations, as a Republican in Hawai'i. However, his venture at the time (as a well-known defense attorney) and his previous connections allowed him to stay in contact with many heavy hitters in the government. Olivia, who was beginning to consider the possibility of elected office after the birth of her third son, used connections from Alphonso to position herself for a run for Prosecutor of Honolulu County. In late 1996, she announced her campaign and resigned from the U.S. Attorney's office. Although registered as a Republican and unapologetic about it, Olivia's relentless campaigning and connections allowed her to be competitive against a Democratic opponent. She would personally drive across Honolulu, with newborn Hector along for the ride, to knock on doors and deliver speeches. In her campaign, she emphasized that "crime isn't partisan--it isn't political," and claimed that she wouldn't treat the Prosecutor's office as a political office. Her Democratic opponent, by contrast, ran a harsh and attacking campaign against her, hoping to bury her in a tide of partisanship. Olivia instead twisted this, plastering pictures of her and her young children across the city, captioned with insulting quotes from the Democrat. The bottoms of these posters read "This is how [Democrat] treats a young mother of three. Do you trust him to stick up for
you?" The Democrat quickly tried reversing his campaign and reducing the partisan tone, quickly switching to a more positive approach. However, at a candidate debate hosted by the local television news, Olivia soundly won, with one particular highlight being a heated exchange over experience. The Democrat claimed that Olivia, being so young, lacked the relevant experience for the job. Olivia fired back, "Let's ask the serial killers I put away in San Francisco if they agree," which the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin noted was a "stretch of the truth, at best". But it worked, and Olivia began overtaking the Democrat in the polls. Come election day, she won by roughly 1.7 percent, and was sworn in in December of 1996.
As Prosecutor, Olivia was mostly in an administrative role, which she chafed at. Her main responsibilities, she found out, were to supervise the two-hundred-odd other attorneys and prosecutors who worked for the department and did most of the legwork. She proved component at it, and would take a case or two a year to prosecute herself. She cracked down on organized crime and government corruption in Honolulu, seizing on widespread dissatisfaction with the state government and rising crime. Under Olivia, the Prosecutor's office had a policy to take as few plea deals for violent crime and corruption as possible--and to only take them when there was a clear benefit to doing so. She also enforced harsh trials and sought hard sentences for young offenders to reduce youth crime, while also rooting out dirty cops in the Honolulu PD.
In 1999, Olivia prosecuted a case herself--the worst mass murder in Hawai'i history. The 1999 Xerox Shootings, where a service tech at a Xerox facility in Honolulu shot and killed 7 coworkers. Olivia made the national news during the trial, and boosted her statewide profile as well, for her aggressive offense and pursuit of the harshest sentence possible for the shooter. In the end, the shooter got sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. The fame and renown from this trial carried her to a solid reelection in 2000.
In 2000, Olivia convinced the state legislature to amend the laws surrounding trials in Hawai'i. Now, instead of calling witnesses and interviewing the victims, a trial for violent crime can be called by the judge, after a careful examination of the evidence surrounding the case. Critics have said that this violates personal liberties, while Olivia claims that it makes for a better system: rather than take up police officers' time and potentially re-traumatizing victims by forcing them to submit to questions before a trial even begins, the judge can simply decide to go to trial based on the gathered evidence.
As Prosecutor, Olivia was known for a very hands-on management style, which some former employees characterized as "micromanaging". It was also noted that she only personally prosecuted cases that were a "slam dunk" for the prosecution. In 2002, Olivia was recruited by some Honolulu Republicans to run for Governor. The incumbent, term-limited Democrat was unpopular, while the only prominent Republican candidate in the race had already lost the 1998 race. Olivia agreed, and entered the Republican primary.
The Republican primary was a very clean race: both candidates met early on and agreed to avoid attacking one another publicly, and both publicly said that they would endorse and campaign for whoever won the nomination. The
Star-Bulletin sarcastically referred to the singular Republican debate as "the most polite event you'll see this side of a Victorian tea party". In the end, Olivia barely won the primary, due mainly to her prominent role in the 1999 trial and her voter base being in the states most populated municipality.
The general election was a tough race. Olivia and the HI GOP put out a news bulletin, "A New Vision for Hawai'i", where they laid out their reformist ambitions versus "The Way Things Are" (AKA, the Democratic platform). With the state economy in a slump, over 40 years of continuous Democratic government, and an unpopular candidate nominated by the Democrats, Olivia was able to pull ahead by a point early on and maintain her lead. In the general election, she won 51% to 48%, and was sworn in in December 2002.
As Governor, Olivia has sought to revitalize and diversify the state economy. She fought to decentralize and deregulate the state, including a quixotic effort to decentralize education in Hawai'i, and give more control to local areas instead of the state government. She also tried to pass a law that would allow municipalities in Hawai'i to incorporate, as Hawai'i does not recognize local government below the County level. Both these efforts failed. However, she did manage to attract more diverse businesses that didn't rely on land development and tourism. She also testified in Congress in 2005, arguing for the repeal of the Jones Act. While she failed to get the law repealed, she attracted good press.
In her first term, Olivia also pursued greater energy independence, targeted tax relief, an increase in Hawai‘i’s homegrown food supply and security, workforce development, expansion of quality health care, creation of more affordable housing, modernization of the transportation infrastructure, and bolstering of public safety and disaster preparedness. She established the Hawai‘i Innovation Initiative to develop the capacity of residents and businesses to innovate with the goal of enabling the state to compete in the global economy of the 21st century and create new, higher-paying jobs, and as the 2006 election neared, her popularity soared--as did the state budget surplus. In January 2006, it was estimated that Hawai'i had a record government surplus of $730 billion, as opposed to the $250 million deficit in 2002.
In 2004, aided by the War on Terror and the popularity of the Republican governor, polls showed (not-Kerry) only leading President Cush by a point. The Vice President campaigned alongside Olivia, and although the state went blue again, the Governor made useful contacts in Washington. She was selected as Chair of the 2004 Republican National Convention, and gave a widely-praised opening speech, in which she praised Cush and called for "An America we can be proud of".
Although she initially appeared to be a very vulnerable candidate in 2002--with many thinking of her victory as a fluke--by late 2005, no prominent Democrat in Hawai'i was willing to run against Olivia. The party nominated a little-known state senator, who attacked Calalo for her tough on crime policies, and for sending criminals to prisons on the mainland instead of keeping them in Hawai'i. Calalo ran a positive campaign, focused on her success in office and her vision for the future of Hawai'i. In the end, she won 63% to 35%, the largest margin of victory in Hawai'i history.
Early in her second term, Olivia has once more tried fighting the Democratic legislature to dissolve the State Board of Education and instead form 7 County Boards of Education, to "return control to the people in the community". She has also quietly begun accumulating support for a 2008 Presidential bid, despite the seeming hopelessness of a mixed-race moderate from a tiny state winning the primary or the general election.
Other Info:
- Devout Catholic.
- Husband left Honolulu PD for work in private security when Olivia was elected Prosecutor.
I have read and accepted the rules of the roleplay: (Your Nation's Name Here)
Do Not Remove: DRAFT123123