For 35 years, Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye
has taken on all comers and
walked away a winnerHow isle delegates spend campaign contributions. (below)
By Pete Pichaske
Phillips News ServiceWASHINGTON -- When Republicans here or in Hawaii sit down to plot election-year strategy, there's one seat conspicuously absent from their plans.
It's Hawaii's U.S. Senate seat, and it belongs, as it has for the past 35 years, to Daniel K. Inouye.
"This is one race where it's definitely uphill for Republicans," conceded National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman Mike Russell. "It's no secret that Inouye is very strong. We'll keep an eye on the race, but this is clearly one where we're going to have to recover a few fumbles, get a few breaks."
The Cook Report, which tracks congressional races nationwide, rates Inouye's seat as one of only seven of the 34 Senate posts up for grabs this year that is solidly Democratic -- despite what Cook Senate expert Jennifer Duffy called the "troubling political climate out there."
As for Democrats, they are happy to have at least one seat on which they can still rely.
"I haven't seen any sign of anyone running against Sen. Inouye," said Democratic Party Chairwoman Marilyn Bornhorst. "I can't imagine any real Democrat insulting him that way ... Why would anyone want to replace him?"
As dominant as ever
Nearly four decades after he first came to Congress to represent Hawaii, Daniel Inouye remains as dominant a figure as ever, securing federal projects for Hawaii with a skill and zeal that appalls critics of pork-barrel spending but wins hearty applause at home.
As he prepares for his sixth campaign for the Senate, the 73-year-old Inouye, ever the picture of circumspection, sounds almost buoyant.
"I always anticipate opposition. That's the only way you can approach this," he said recently. "But I realize that the polls at this point look exceedingly good. I feel confident, yes."
Money is as good a reason as any for the confidence. Last year, Inouye raised nearly $1 million for the campaign, according to his 1997 campaign finance report, and has $651,000 on hand. No other candidate has even raised the $5,000 needed to file a report.
A closer look at Inouye's finance report reveals the steepness of the hill facing challengers. Among his contributors are the usual suspects: home-state supporters, unions, national political action committees. But Inouye can also tap into sources likely unavailable to any other politician in the state.
For example, native American tribes nationwide have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Hawaii's senior senator. He does not solicit their money, Inouye said, but his years of championing their causes as the top Democrat on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee have made him a favorite of native Americans.
Inouye also has friends in Hollywood. Two months ago, on his way back to Hawaii, he stopped off in California for a Beverly Hills fund-raiser that netted generous contributions from such Hollywood big shots as TV producers Norman Lear and Aaron Spelling.
"I despise fund-raisers," said Inouye. "That was a fund-raiser that resulted from people calling me up" and inviting him. During that same visit, he said, a Jewish group also treated him to a fund-raiser.
Inouye's foes
But even legends have their foes. Six years ago, Republican challenger Rick Reed ran a splashy campaign featuring an ad with hairdresser Lenore Kwock's claim that Inouye had forced himself on her sexually years earlier.Inouye survived the charges when Kwock refused to pursue them, and also survived a subsequent investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee into additional allegations of sexual harassment. But he wound up with a below-normal 57 percent of the vote.
By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Sen. Inouye at a recent site dedication at
Marine Corps Base Hawaii.
Although no one is expecting a repeat of that sometimes-nasty campaign, Inouye will face opposition.Two Republicans are already in the race: Eugene Douglass, a 40-year-old college instructor; and Harry Friel, 31, who quit his job as a file clerk last year to run for the Senate. Neither has run for office before.
Douglass is running on a platform calling for abolishing the IRS, ending government subsidies for growing food, campaign finance reform and returning most government functions to the states. He faults Inouye for being accessible only to a segment of the population (liberal Democrats) and for running on his record as a World War II hero.
"I don't know if I have a chance of winning or not, but I'm very serious about this," said Douglass. "I believe there's a need for change in Congress."
Friel, who moved to Hawaii in March 1996, said he is "pro-life and pro-sovereignty" and eager to represent "a new generation of young people coming up that is very concerned about social and economic issues."
The health question
If Inouye has a point of vulnerability, it might be his health. His doctor gave him a clean bill of health after a physical exam last month, Inouye said, but he has had two operations in the past several months: one on his shoulder, the other for cataracts. On March 3, he is scheduled for cataract surgery on his other eye."If I felt my health was less than desirable, I wouldn't hesitate" to reconsider running for re-election, said Inouye. "But according to my doctor, I'm in excellent health."
Inouye, who will turn 80 in 2004 when his seat is next up for election, deflects questions over whether this is his final campaign.
"In this business, you don't want to be labeled a lame duck," he said.
But asked about his goals for the next six years, he talks of setting up a system among Hawaii's federal, state and local governments "whereby whoever succeeds me will have something to follow."
Many in Hawaii are assuming this is Inouye's final race. Donna Alcantara, Hawaii Republican Party chairwoman, talks of building a "farm team" so that by 2004, the party will be well-positioned to challenge for the seat.
But that is six years away.
"There's nobody I feel would be capable of challenging him seriously this year," acknowledged Alcantara. "We feel our money and efforts would be better spent focusing on other races."
Inouye, said Alcantara, has managed to avoid the economic and political turmoil that has engulfed many Hawaii politicians.
"I see him distancing himself," she said. "I have the feeling he wants to keep his legacy clean and be remembered as the man who did good for Hawaii."
How isle delegation spends
campaign contributionsRecords show funds used for meals,
By Pete Pichaske
candy, cards, donations and more
Phillips News ServiceWASHINGTON -- None were up for re-election last year, but that didn't stop Hawaii's four congressional representatives from taking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions -- and spending tens of thousands of dollars on such items as meals, flowers, candy, Christmas cards and charitable donations.
A review of their 1997 campaign finance reports found all four spending campaign money on items that appear only tangentially related to running for office. But the longest and most interesting list was Sen. Daniel Inouye's.
Inouye spent about $12,000 on meals last year -- or $1,000 a month -- including meals in such distant locales as Seattle and Sante Fe, N.M.
He also spent tens of thousands on unspecified credit card purchases and thousands more on unspecified travel.
Such expenditures are not illegal, since candidates are barred only from spending campaign money for "personal use" and have a wide discretion on what constitutes nonpersonal use.
"The regulations are not intended to micromanage a campaign," said Ian Stirton of the Federal Election Commission.
Nor are they unusual.
In his book "The Handbook of Campaign Spending: Money Spent in the 1992 Congressional Races," Dwight Morris found that nationwide, 49 percent of the money spent on congressional campaigns went for meals, gifts, entertainment and other purchases that "had virtually nothing to do with appeals for votes."
But while neither illegal nor unusual, such spending is precisely the sort that has good-government organizations clamoring for reform.
"It's an area that needs more careful scrutiny," said Paul Hendrie of the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics. "When people contribute to a campaign, they expect it to be used for real campaign purposes, not as a kind of slush fund for the candidate. In a sense, it's a breach of faith with the contributor to spend money like that."
Critics also claim that campaign spending reports are vague and nearly impossible to verify, and that spending on peripheral items drives up the cost of campaigning.
Inouye aide Jennifer Goto Sabas defended all of the senator's expenditures as acceptable under campaign spending rules.
The numerous restaurant bills, she said, fall into several categories: meals Inouye hosts when he is leading a congressional delegation, especially in Hawaii; campaign strategy meals with supporters; and fund-raising expenses.
If a meal is not directly related to campaigning, she said, "it's part of goodwill, and it's allowed under campaign spending rules."
Stirton of the FEC, which enforces the rules, said the commission occasionally informs candidates they have made illegal expenditures and negotiates a fine, but has never done so for any of the four Hawaii lawmakers.
Still, Inouye's restaurant bills have come under fire in the past. In his campaign spending handbook, Morris cites them as an example of candidates using campaign money "to enhance their personal lifestyle." During the 6-year term that ended in 1992, Morris found, Inouye spent $106,000 on meals -- more than any other senator except New York Republican Alfonse D'Amato.
According to his 1997 finance report, Inouye's campaign meals were mostly in Washington or Honolulu restaurants, although he also dined twice in Seattle and once in Sante Fe.
Inouye also donated campaign money to charity, including $30 to the Aiea Orchid Club in Honolulu, $25 to the Vietnam Veterans of Hawaii and $42 to the Salvation Army. Unspecified credit card payments were among Inouye's heftier purchases. From February through June, for example, he reported $17,478 in payments to FHB BankCard.
None of Hawaii's other congressional representatives came close to matching Inouye's credit card or restaurant bills, but all three had noteworthy expenditures:
Mink also donated $1,000 to U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez of California, who became something of a cause celebre for Democratic women after she spent much of last year battling complaints of voter fraud from the man she defeated, former Rep. Robert Dornan.
