Coffee with a Candidate: Democratic congressional candidate Ed Case

Ed Case was the last to enter the race for the seat vacated by U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa.

He threw his name in on the final day to file.

But name recognition and experience in Washington, D.C. made him an immediate front-runner.

And Case says he's got the record and the political know-how to serve Hawaii well in Congress.

Here are some things you might not know about the former U.S. representative:

• Ed Case represented Manoa in the state House from 1994 to 2002.
• Case served in Congress from 2002 to 2007.
• Since 2013, Case has been senior vice president and chief legal officer at Outrigger Hotels.
• Case was born and raised in Hilo, the fourth generation of his family in Hawaii.

• Was that planned to get into the race so late or was it something that you sat back and strategized and saw who was in the race with you and said you know what?

You know it really wasn't any of that. I don't really think that we decided for sure to go until about the middle, or third week of May. So that only left us a couple of weeks to get ready. It grew on me from about March, on, and it grew because I was a member of the Reformer's Caucus which is former members of Congress, there are about 200 of us now who believe the country needs to be reformed and we got together to try to help that, and at some point I kind of thought to myself, if I'm going to be a reformer, I'd rather be a reformer on the inside than the outside and I was watching the race too and I was thinking that Hawaii really does need a strong congressional delegation and I felt I could pitch my experience into the team there and help out so it kind of came together pretty rapidly, but once it came together, I was really sure it was the right thing to do.

• Why should you have a second chance at this?

Well, I tell them really that there's three reasons to support me. Number one – our country needs fixing. We need a little bit less yelling and a little bit more talking and I want to be part of that solution, that's number one. Number two – I tell them that I've got the experience, knowledge and the ability to do that and I'm not an unknown quantity. I've done it already and I hope and believe that most people think that I did a good job the last time around. And finally, I tell them that our Hawaii delegation needs to be strong, needs to have all people pulling their weight in the canoe. And I think that they perfectly understand all of that and actually what I hear on the campaign trail more than anything else is, "we're glad you're back". It's wonderful to hear that but I hear that so much. I hope that means that they're going to vote for me… but at least it means that they're glad I'm back.

• If you had a chance for a do-over, just listening to you speak today, if you had a chance for a do-over in life, what would you do differently?

You know, hardly anything. I've had my share of successes and failures. I've had challenges I've had opportunities so there's not a whole bunch that I would do differently. But if I could do one thing, I would have married Audrey a lot earlier. We've had a wonderful 20 years, but I really wish it had been more like 40. It's been wonderful.

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