Kemp sparks Waikoloa
GOP convention
Republicans target Cayetano
By Mike Yuen
and hope to get a congressional seat
Star-BulletinWAIKOLOA, Hawaii -- Energized by a surprise appearance by Jack Kemp and unscathed by party in-fighting that marred some previous state conventions, Hawaii Republicans concluded their 1997 parley optimistic that they can win the governor's race and increase their electoral victories next year. "I haven't felt so hopeful for so many years," newly elected state party Chairwoman Donna Alcantara said at the convention's
closing session yesterday. "Our job is to go out and share that hope."
Alcantara, a former college admissions director who twice ran unsuccessfully for the state House, set ambitious goals for her party: ousting Democratic Gov. Ben Cayetano, winning at least one of the three open congressional seats (one in the Senate and two in the House), adding three more members to the two-member GOP state Senate delegation, doubling the state House's current 12-member Republican contingent, holding onto the Maui and Kauai mayoral seats, and increasing the GOP presence on county councils.
But veteran GOP hands had a cautionary note to the heady optimism that many delegates and alternates were taking home, particularly the belief that Maui Mayor Linda Crockett Lingle can knock off Cayetano.
"I've been through this drill too many times," said Hawaii Republican National Committeeman Howard Chong, who has attended state conventions since 1980 and whose party currently controls only 26 of 120 elected offices.
Chong acknowledged that his thinking is tempered by the fact that in recent years the state party would be upbeat coming out of its conventions only to see its dreams dashed on election day.
The enthusiasm of this year's convention matched the emotion at the 1994 parley when former U.S. Rep. Patricia Saiki, then the GOP gubernatorial candidate, had big leads in early public-opinion polls, Chong said. She finished third in the four-candidate election.
Back then, as now, Republicans were saying they were facing their best opportunity at ending Democratic control of the governor's office, which stretches back to 1962.
Lingle, who has been running a high-profile but unofficial campaign, "can't just run a good campaign. It has to be perfect," Chong said.
She would have to win on Oahu, which has about 70 percent of the vote, and she would have to make a compelling case to rank-and-file union members, who generally vote Democratic, Chong added.
"I don't think there a union worker who doesn't think we got economic problems," Chong asserted.
Chong and others said this year's convention was highly unusual in that it had a strong national presence.
Former Housing Secretary Kemp, whom many expect will be a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in the yearr 2000, had his 20-minute speech interrupted 30 times by cheers or applause.
"Linda is a progressive conservative -- conservative values but progressive in terms of working for a better future for all of us," said Kemp, who promised to make a contribution to Lingle's campaign committee.
Kemp also endorsed state Rep. Quentin Kawananakoa (R, Nuuanu), who's seriously considering a bid against U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D, Honolulu). Kemp, however, had a difficult time pronouncing Kawananakoa's name.
Also at the parley were Republican National Committee Co-Chairwoman Patricia Harrison, GOP political trainer Evelyn McPhail and Washington-based Republican pollster Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, a Kemp protege.
Harrison said the RNC has targeted Cayetano's seat and that the national party will be making contributions to Lingle's anticipated campaign.
During McPhail's six-hour training seminar attended by about 100 Republicans that covered topics such as campaign planning, volunteer recruitment and fund-raising, McPhail made repeated references to what needs to be done to help Lingle win.
Fitzpatrick, who did the polling for former Reagan administration appointee Orson Swindle in his unsuccessful challenge of Abercrombie last year, said polling data indicates that voters associate Cayetano with the state's economic woes.
The most recent Honolulu Star-Bulletin Poll, taken three months ago, revealed that Cayetano's job-approval rating plummeted to its lowest level since he took office. His poor rating of 23 percent was more than three times what it was two years ago in the Star-Bulletin's previous statewide surveys.
Lingle points to her
winning ways in addressMaui mayor says she's often been
Analysis by Mike Yuen
the underdog but still manages to win
Star-BulletinWAIKOLOA, Hawaii -- The keynote address that Maui Mayor Linda Crockett Lingle gave at the Republican state convention was essentially the stump speech of her unofficial campaign for governor. It, like many other talks and interviews she's given this year, contains the key elements of the message she wants to get out: She can beat an incumbent Democratic governor in a Democratic state, she has leadership qualities that set her apart and she has a vision.
Here's a look at the points she's stressing and also what's unstated:
I can win a gubernatorial election: Don't be surprised if Lingle begins a talk by immediately raising the question that she believes is on everyone's mind, "Do you think you can win?"
That question has dogged her previous campaigns, but she has managed to emerge victorious, Lingle stresses.
She notes that in 1980, when she ran for the Maui County Council for the first time, she was a 27-year-old haole Republican woman living on Molokai who had only been in Hawaii four years. But she managed to defeat Mariano Acoba, the union-endorsed incumbent Democrat from Molokai who's "a very nice person," says Lingle, now 43.
She adds that when she moved to Maui in 1986 and ran for an at-large council seat, she knew she had to oust one of two Democratic incumbents -- either Bob Nakasone, then the council chairman and now a state representative, or former Police Chief Abe Aiona, now an Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustee. She ended up beating Aiona and running only 12 votes behind Nakasone.
Lingle also reminds her audience that in the 1990 Maui mayoral race, in which there was no incumbent, she defeated the "very powerful" Elmer Cravalho, a Democrat who had been mayor and House speaker.
Unstated: She would be making her first statewide race. Politicians who are female or from the neighbor islands have never won the gubernatorial election. Gov. Ben Cayetano is also undefeated in his political career, which began began six years earlier than Lingle's. By stressing that she can win, Lingle also hopes to get money flowing into her likely campaign.
The policy applies to those who hold a commercial driver's license. If they test positive a third time for alcohol or a second time for drugs after receiving counseling, they are allowed to sign a last-chance agreement. It says if they are caught again, "they will be permitted to resign," Lingle says.
The policy, Lingle says, sends the wrong message, saying government doesn't take the drug problem seriously.
Unstated: During the past legislative session, Cayetano pushed for tougher drug laws, many of which were approved.
"Remember, capital may go where it is invited, but it only stays where it is welcome," she adds.
Maui's economy has managed to thrive because of the trust she has managed to build with the business community, Lingle says. And that's even in despite of the county having collected less in property taxes during the past five years, she says.
Lingle boasts that for the past three consecutive years, Maui has won the national budgeting award from the national association for state finance officers.
Unstated: Cayetano believes he can turn Hawaii's laggard economy around by speeding up state public works projects and by boosting tourism, which got a $10 million emergency appropriation for visitor promotion. Cayetano supporters hope the economy can brighten within the year so that it won't be a campaign issue.
Lowell Kalapa, executive director of the Tax Foundation of Hawaii, wonders why Lingle wants to be governor. Whoever is governor after next year's election will have to deal with an even worst financial crisis than what Cayetano has endured, Kalapa said.
