IN every election, there is truth and there are consequences. What follows is a short review of some of the primary's truthful moments and some, possibly, not-so-truthful consequences: Voters faced the
moment of truthTruth: An colorblind woman was allowed to have a friend accompany her into the voting booth to deal with the new color-coded ballots.
Consequences: The Cayetano camp is rushing to have 109,000 voters who cast their ballots for Linda Lingle declared legally colorblind so that Democratic "helpers" can join them in the voting booth in the general election so that "they get it right this time."
Truth: A gubernatorial candidate who advocated putting prostitution sting operations in the hands of private business garnered more than 2,700 votes.
Consequences: There are more than 2,700 sad guys out there who dreamed of becoming paid, free-lance sex investigators.
Truth: More than 9,000 people voted for Republican Quentin Kawananakoa for the U.S. House even though he had pulled out of the race several weeks before the election.
Consequences: The next time the Democrats urge people to cross over, they are gong to have be be a little more specific about which candidates to vote for.
Truth: House Speaker Joe Souki trounced his Democratic opponent on Maui by a couple of thousand votes despite the fact that he had written a letter supporting the release of a child sex molester and refused to recuse himself from bills affecting Bishop Estate before the state Legislature even though he made more than $100,000 in an estate business deal.
Consequences: Apparently there are none.
Truth: More Maui voters cast ballots for Ben Cayetano than for their own resident candidate, Linda Lingle.
Consequences: If those are the same voters who supported Souki and his efforts to free a child molester, Lingle may not want them.
Truth: Councilman Steve Holmes calls general election challenger Melodie Aduja's proposal for a flat tax "pretty hare-brained."
Consequences: Melodie, if he accuses you of "blowing smoke," duck.
Truth: Legislator Terrance Tom was soundly thrashed in the state senate primary after he refused to say exactly what services, if any, he was providing Bishop Estate in return for nearly $50,000 a year.
Consequences: The people just won't stand for this kind of conflict of interest any more! Wait a minute. Forgot about Souki. Yes they will.
Truth: Frank Fasi was so badly beaten by Linda Lingle that he didn't even stick around his campaign headquarters to say good night.
Consequences: Fasi finally will cease his mean-spirited diatribes against everything that moves and settle down and become the dignified elder statesman of Hawaii politics he deserves to be. (Well, we can hope.)
Truth: The brand new voting system that depends on pen and paper instead of that advanced computer punch card stuff proved to be as stupid as it seemed it would. It was confusing, time consuming and not very private. (How many times did you see elections officers pulling people's ballots OUT of the "secret" envelopes and waving them around the room while they tried to get the damn machines to work?)
Consequences: Look for elections officials to take the next technical quantum leap: chisel and rock.
Truth: Councilman Jon Yoshimura, facing absolutely no challenger in the primary, was not assured of primary victory until the final computer print out.
Consequences: Kidding, Jon. Just kidding.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to charley@nomayo.com or
71224.113@compuserve.com.
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