A band of conservative provacateurs unhappy with the Hawai’i GOP’s direction under Gov. Linda Lingle has found some new ammunition.

Eric Ryan, Garry Smith and a few of their allies have been toying with state GOP chairman Willes Lee over his refusal last weekend to remove a member of the party’s platform committee for donating money to local Democrats.

Smith was on it with a letter Monday in Hawaii Reporter, the conservative-to-libertarian Web site. Ryan, who is handy with a parody, sent out cartoons via e-mail that also appeared on the bombastic Zeroshibai.com.

By late Friday, conservative diva Michelle Malkin had jumped in on her blog, as did former state House staffer Doug White over at www.poinography.com.

So what went down?

Ryan, a member of the platform committee, wanted the party to dump H.K. Bruss Keppeler from the platform committee and the party because Keppeler donated to U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka’s re-election campaign in 2006 against state Rep. Cynthia Thielen, R-50th (Kailua, Käneçohe Bay).

The party’s rules state that a member could be removed for actively campaigning for a candidate from another party. Lee said he consulted with the party’s rules official and determined that Keppeler’s donations to Akaka did not constitute actively campaigning for the senator.

Lee told us on Friday afternoon that a donation is not the same as, for example, a public endorsement or a campaign commercial or working on a campaign. He said his decision does not mean, as Ryan and Smith have claimed, that he is encouraging Republicans to give money to Democrats.

“I’m always hesitant to just say somebody is lying, but it is certainly shading the truth,” Lee said. “Nobody asked the question if it was alright to give money to Democrats.”

Lee said he wished Ryan would use his communications and computer skills to help the GOP fight majority Democrats instead of tearing down the party’s leadership.

“Certainly as talented as Ryan appears to be with these pieces he builds, it would be nice — especially with our need to have the public hear more of our views — that he would participate with us instead of him supporting Democrats by trying to knock down Republicans,” Lee said. “But I haven’t quite got him to do that yet.”

We did some checking around after we talked with Lee and — uh, oh — it turns out Keppeler did publicly endorse Akaka, although it was during the senator’s primary against former congressman Ed Case.

Keppeler, a real-estate lawyer active in the Hawaiian community, was quoted in a press release from the Native Hawaiian Chamber of Commerce endorsing Akaka.

“The Native Hawaiian Chamber of Commerce board has worked closely with Senator Akaka for many years. We have the utmost confidence in his ability to support not only Native Hawaiian businesses but Hawaii businesses as well,” stated NHCC Governmental Affairs Chair, H.K. Bruss Keppeler. “In recognition of his significant contributions to Hawaii and Native Hawaiians, NHCC bestowed on Senator Akaka in 1991 our highest honor, the `O`o award,” he said.

Ryan believes Lee made the wrong call.

“He’s saying you might not be able to give time like stuffing envelopes or licking stamps for the opposition, but if you’re a Friend of Lingle and she likes your politics, you can keep giving thousands to Democrats and still help lead the GOP and even write its policies,” he said in an e-mail. “Pretzel logic, for sure. No wonder the party’s been in decline since Lingle became governess.”

White, at poinography.com, notes that the Democratic Party of Hawai’i also has a rule against actively supporting another party or another party’s candidates.

U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, the state’s top Democrat, has famously broken that rule through his longtime friendship and support for U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska.