WHEN urged to "give 'em hell," President Harry Truman is supposed to have said that he just was telling the truth about his Congress - but they considered it hell. Negative campaigning can be truthful
The new name for that in Hawaii this year was "negative campaigning." When Republicans Orson Swindle and Sam Slom told the truth about their opponents, Congressman Neil Abercrombie and state Sen. Donna Ikeda, Abercrombie and Ikeda considered it hell and called it "negative."
Swindle had facts to back his claim that one of the biggest spenders in Congress is Abercrombie. Slom, like a bull terrier, ferociously held Senator Ikeda accountable for the record of the 1995-96 Legislature, reminding her that as Senate finance chairwoman she was one of its most powerful members. He reduced her to mumbling about why the repeal of "high three" posh pension benefits for legislators didn't pass. So welcome Slom to the Senate, where he will give a loud voice to GOP positions even though only two senators out of 25 are Republican.
And welcome the strengthed GOP minority in the House, where 12 votes out of 51 are at least enough to demand roll-call votes on tough issues, thus leaving less place to hide.
And welcome the possibility that Swindle will try again in 1998. The GOP may yet rise from the ashes of the long-ago Democratic sweep of 1962. If it means healthy debate including the kind of truthful attacks called "negative" by their targets, hurrah. No hurrahs, of course, for lies and distortion, which we also saw this year.
Abercrombie was guilty of a lot of distortion and some untruths in his attacks on Swindle. I don't detect the opposite in Swindle's ads. Democrats here and nationally accused the Republicans of wanting to shred the social safety net provided by Medicaid and Medicare.
The truth is the GOP always supported increased funding for both. It just didn't support as high an increase as the Democrats. It felt Medicaid health help for the poor can be best administered by the states.
I turned for some advice on this to Hubert S. Kimura, now in state planning. In 1979 and 1982 he wrote a couple of nonpartisan books on how to campaign effectively in Hawaii. "The Akamai Strategist" is still in some bookstores. Both are in our libraries.
Early this year Kimura taught a half-day non-credit University of Hawaii class on "How to Win Elections." Out of some 45 students 90 percent were Republicans. He also lunched with our prosecutor-elect, Peter Carlisle, and feels that the Carlisle campaign stayed with the facts, as he recommended.
Distorters sooner or later are figured out by the voters, Kimura says. In the meantime, when confronted with conflicting "facts" they tend to turn to character to decide their votes.
CONFLICTING "facts" are created when both sides, or at least one side, tells half truths or lies. Half-truths are easy because most political decisions are complex. They aren't so simple as telling black from white, but 30-second spots pretend they are.
I am absolutely sure the Republicans in Congress and in Hawaii have no intent to destroy the social fabric of our society. They just have different ideas about how to fix it.
Given the failures of the 30-year-long big-bucks, big-government War on Poverty, more and more Americans think other ideas deserve a hearing.
Let's watch between now and the 1998 elections and try to perceive when what's labeled negative is just telling the truth. It won't always be. Both parties may again slip into half truths, or worse. Even so, 1996 was the best issues campaign year Hawaii has seen in a long time - and it worked to the GOP's benefit.