Republicans are alarmed at a new round of anonymous attacks, saying the smear pieces are designed to confuse voters in this close election year. GOP decries anonymous
letter taking aim
at candidate AionaBy Richard Borreca
rborreca@starbulletin.comYesterday, attorneys across the state and all members of the Legislature got an anonymous letter in the mail about James "Duke" Aiona, the former Family Court judge and attorney who is the GOP lieutenant governor candidate.
The letter, which made reference to Aiona being Hawaiian, said he was not bright and that he had been rewarded his judgeship by his law partner, Gerard Jervis, in return for settling a lawsuit in Jervis' favor when Aiona was a deputy city corporation counsel.
Yesterday, Aiona called the letter "all lies."
His campaign chairman, George Lindsey, said the unsigned, one-page letter is "designed to make people feel bad about each other."
"It is cowards who do these kind of hateful lies," Lindsey said.
Also, an anonymous ad appeared in several local publications, saying that if the GOP won "for the first time in almost 50 years the majority of our population would not have a representative government."
And a new round of mailings that were paid for by the Democratic Party came out yesterday, charging that Republicans voted against the schools budget.
One GOP lawmaker, Rep. Cynthia Thielen (Kailua), who had voted for the state budget and the school construction budget said the "Democrats are launching despicable lies."
A Democratic consultant from Texas, Kim Devlin, who said she was brought to Hawaii to help with the campaign, defended the ad, saying the mailing "didn't say Cynthia Thielen voted that way, we are saying the Republicans voted that way."
"We feel we are educating the public," Devlin said about the mailing.
The mailing says, "Thielen and the Republicans voted against renovating Kailua Elementary and Intermediate schools," even though Thielen voted in favor of the appropriation.
"It is just a nasty, nasty attack and utterly untruthful," Thielen said.
The anonymous Aiona letters and newspaper ads could not be traced, but one Republican, state Rep. Galen Fox (Waikiki), said the piece against Aiona was like a smear used against former U.S. Rep. Cec Heftel when he ran for governor in 1986.
"It is just like the Heftel smear. It is widespread, anonymous and totally false," Fox said.
Laura Figueira, who was Heftel's assistant and worked on his gubernatorial campaign, said the anonymous attack was difficult to defend against because it came just days before the primary election and made voters doubt the integrity of the candidate.
"The candidate is forced to deny outlandish charges," Figuera said.
The Aiona letter says GOP gubernatorial candidate Linda Lingle picked Aiona to be her running mate in meetings with Jervis, but Lingle said she had never met Jervis, an attorney and former Bishop Estate trustee.
"It is false and misleading, and it is an out-and-out lie," Lingle said.
Previously in the campaign, Lingle said her campaign was targeted by anonymous racist mailings.
As for the anonymous newspaper ads, Robert Watada, Campaign Spending Commission executive director, said the ads appear designed to escape reporting requirements.
Political ads that mention a candidate must state who paid for them, but the anonymous ad only attacks the GOP and does not mention a specific candidate.
