A usually pleasant volunteer with Maui Mayor Lingle Lingle's unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign put it bluntly: "I know this, the mayor is never going to go for public financing again -- she's going to raise her own money and she can, too." Public campaign
financing is arrivingConventional wisdom from last month's governor's race has it that Lingle lost in the last two weeks. In order to make good on a voluntary promise to limit her spending to $2.7 million, she halted all print media and cut back on television advertising.
The Cayetano campaign, which had millions more, kept escalating the spending. When the race was over, Democrat Cayetano had spent $28 for every vote he won, while Republican Lingle spent $18.
Discovering that wealthy candidates have a better chance of winning won't set off any seismographs -- but it still doesn't make for better politics, better government or better elections.
A new survey of congressional campaign donors done for the Joyce Foundation of Chicago found that even the big-bucks donors are deeply critical of the system. More than three-quarters say the system needs to be changed; one-third say it is broken.
Finally, even the Hawaii campaign spending executive director, Bob Watada, admits that state campaign laws didn't work in the governor's race.
Lingle promised to limit how much she spent in return for the promise to get matching state money. But when her campaign became so popular and she collected more money than expected, she inadvertently spent it and went over the spending ceiling. So what good was the limit in the first place? Even though she curtailed spending to comply with her promise, she was still raising money.
Some concerned citizens have been trying to change this failed system, but their efforts are moving slowly.
Toni Worst, president of Hawaii Clean Elections, won over the Legislature last year to study total public funding. It is a good idea, but even the study won't be in place until 2002.
Her goal is to do away with partial public financing that so ensnarled the Lingle campaign. "We know we have a system that doesn't work very well, that has too many loopholes, that is failing on all counts," she said.
A failing election system doesn't collapse in a vacuum. It is having an impact on Hawaii right now. Good candidates without lots of money have a difficult time getting elected. Shabby candidates with plenty of money have a relatively easy path to election or re-election. Just like bad money drives good money out of circulation, bad politicians drive good politicians out of office.
Worst points out another group victimized by high-priced politics: the non-voter.
"When you talk to non-voters they don't feel equal. They don't feel they count as much as a thousand-dollar check," she said.
Politicians do listen to constituents and interest groups that they feel they represent, but it is also true that some campaign donors give because it gives them access to politicians.
THE best remedy for all these problems is speed. Hawaii already has agreed that it is interested in a public financing plan. Four states have moved ahead of Hawaii in implementation, but there are few major reasons why Hawaii's next state and county election couldn't be held in a cleaner format.
It is the kind of change that could show to Hawaii's voters and non-voters that this state is not just ready for change -- it is changing.
Richard Borreca reports on Hawaii's politics every Wednesday.
He can be reached by e-mail at rborreca@pixi.com