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ONE of the most important winners in this year's election wasn't even on the ballot. Lingle proved herself
with Republican
election gainsFormer Maui Mayor Linda Lingle took a big political risk when she assumed the chairmanship of the Hawaii Republican Party two years ago after losing the governor's race to Ben Cayetano by a few thousand votes.
It gave her a good way to keep her campaign organization intact and remain in the public eye until the next governor's election in 2002.
But she risked being written off as a lightweight if she failed to lead the woebegone Republicans to significant gains in legislative elections. Voters wanted to see whether she is capable of making change happen.
Lingle came through in a huge way. She picked her battleground districts carefully and recruited quality candidates from the hordes of new people she brought into the Republican Party in her last race for governor. She helped them run credible campaigns and, more importantly, got the candidates working together to help each other.
Lingle kept the party's extremists in line and deftly steered the local GOP through such contentious issues as the Bishop Estate and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
It paid off with a GOP gain of seven seats in the state House of Representatives. Republicans now control 19 of the 51 House seats -- up from 12 in the last Legislature and only four as recently as 1992.
House Majority Leader Ed Case was so concerned by the GOP wins that he stepped down from his leadership post when fellow Democrats voted to stand pat with a status quo agenda and committee lineup.
If House Republicans emerge as a disciplined force, the 19 votes are enough to form winning coalitions with Case and other dissident Democrats on key issues. If they can't win, they have enough votes to pull bottled-up bills out of committee for floor votes that will put Democrats on the record with unpopular positions.
Republicans picked up only one seat in the state Senate to give them three votes out of 25. But the GOP wounded several Democratic senators and has an opportunity for more gains in 2002, when all 25 senators will face re-election because of reapportionment.
With the legislative victories, Lingle goes into the 2002 governor's race with an excellent platform from which to advance her issues, an aura of success and an even stronger organization than she had in 1998.
STILL, it won't be an easy stroll to Washington Place. Lingle's likely Democratic opponents also improved their positions in this year's election.
Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris won easy re-election over Mufi Hannemann despite the best efforts of public employee unions to bruise him for 2002. If Harris chooses to run for governor, he enters the race with a strong voter base on Oahu, a solid campaign organization and a fat bank account.
Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono, the other leading Democratic candidate, ran Al Gore's campaign in Hawaii and delivered the state strongly for the vice president. In the process, she built the beginnings of her own campaign organization for 2002 and cemented her ties to the Democratic Party regulars and labor leaders who will be key to her chances of success.
But Lingle had more to lose than the lieutenant governor in the 2000 election. Her heroics as GOP leader will end any talk that her strong showing in 1998 was a fluke and send her into the next governor's race as a certified heavy hitter.
David Shapiro is managing editor of the Star-Bulletin.
He can be reached by e-mail at dshapiro@starbulletin.com.
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