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CONVENTIONAL wisdom says to follow the money and the money is flowing into Linda Lingle's gubernatorial campaign coffers. Can the Democrats close
the money gap in time?A year ago, Republican Lingle already had amassed $454,673, while Mazie Hirono trailed with $222,522. The leading challenger, fellow Democrat Jeremy Harris, had a mere $130,495 in the bank, but his fund-raising efforts upped that number to $1.2 million before he called it quits on May 30.
Campaign contribution figures released yesterday show Lingle with $1.5 million, a whopping 329 percent increase since last year. Her three Democratic opponents, Hirono, Ed Case and Andy Anderson together have less than $900,000 and face a tough September primary before the winner can unite the party for the November showdown.
In the '98 campaign, roles were reversed and it was Lingle who faced a primary. While Lingle and longtime Honolulu Mayor Frank Fasi battled for the Republican nomination, incumbent Gov. Ben Cayetano sat on his treasury and waited for a victorious opponent to emerge.
LINGLE'S primary victory was the high point of her 1998 bid. She outpolled both Fasi and the eventual winner, Cayetano, racking up more than 109,000 votes to Fasi's 49,000.
However, the Republican primary simply had attracted most of the action. Although Cayetano got fewer votes than Lingle -- about 96,000 -- they constituted 86 percent of those cast in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. In the end, Cayetano was re-elected with 204,206 votes to Lingle's 198,952.
Besides having first to overcome the Fasi bid, Lingle had hobbled her campaign by vowing not to exceed the voluntary campaign-spending limit of $2.7 million, observers noted at the time.
As Election Day approached, Lingle's campaign was strapped for cash while Cayetano was riding a media wave purchased from a campaign purse that began with $4 million and crested at $5 million. Labor unions mounted their own anti-Lingle campaigns, reinforcing Caye-tano's efforts.
After outspending Lingle by almost 2 to 1, Cayetano eked out a victory margin of only 5,254 votes.
THE MONEY derby is actually closer than it looks. The Harris campaign is beginning to pay back donors from its remaining $640,000. Besides normal campaign expenses run up before the mayor's bid for governor ended, the campaign's spending report includes $139,084 in legal fees and $57,578 for consultants hired to review the campaign's accounting practices.
Presumably, much of the money Harris returns will be redirected to other Democrats. While the refunds announced in June might be slow in coming, they really won't be needed until September. Then, they'll likely help the candidate who survives the primary.
Ironically, it's the Democrats' past success in raising campaign money that could be the party's downfall -- first, by knocking it's leading candidate out of the race.
The Harris 2000 mayoral re-election bid raised some $2 million. Of that amount, more than 60 city contractors kicked in $750,000, which led to a Campaign Spending Commission investigation. The ugly cloud raised by the investigation was one of the factors that led to Harris' decision to sit out this year's dance, but the political climate was already nasty.
TAKE the convictions of fellow Democrats, Honolulu City Council members Andy Mirikitani and Rene Mansho on theft and other charges, add the persistently newsworthy Ewa Villages scandal, airport main- tenance kickbacks and other real or imagined crimes and peccadilloes, and political corruption is shaping up as the major campaign issue of 2002.
Perhaps that's why the governor's attempt to discredit the Lingle campaign platform by having administration bureaucrats pick it apart may have backfired.
Normally, Lingle's charge that state employees have no business doing campaign work on taxpayer time would be dismissed as defensive whining.
In today's climate, it has resonance.
John Flanagan is the Star-Bulletin's contributing editor.
He can be reached at: jflanagan@starbulletin.com.