American Samoa continues to grab national headlines because of the presidential campaigning.
Last Thursday’s edition of the New York Times reports that the chairman of the Republican Party in American Samoa, Utu Abe Malae, began feeling the pressure almost immediately: phone calls, commitment forms, anything the presidential campaigns could do, say or send to nail down his support as a delegate.
The newspaper quotes Utu, Chairman of the American Samoa Republican Party saying, “We want to be able to change our minds.”
Being uncommitted and unbound, Utu said, was precisely the point for a place like his territory, which has no vote in Congress or in the Electoral College.
He told the New York Times, “We joke that this must have been what it was like being in an outpost of the Roman Empire.”
Utu said that in any other year, he would have had a hard time finding delegates. It is a commitment that comes with a price.
Travel from the remote territory in the Pacific, through Honolulu, to the convention in Cleveland will cost around $6,000, said the newspaper.
This year, however, there was so much local interest in becoming a delegate, Mr. Malae said, that all nine delegates had already put down deposits so they would not lose their places.
