DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
After a closed-door meeting in which he told his Cabinet that he was withdrawing from the governor's race, a solemn Mayor Jeremy Harris took a quiet moment yesterday in his office at Honolulu Hale to review his speech for a formal announcement. Moments after this shot was taken, Harris walked out with his wife, Ramona, to address the press.
Scramble starts
Harris' exit buoys other governor
candidates but ends the mayor's race
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Political control of Hawaii turned into a free-for-all last night as Jeremy Harris' gubernatorial campaign collapsed. ANALYSIS
The Harris bombshell derails
the campaigns of
several DemocratsBy Richard Borreca
rborreca@starbulletin.comLike a row of dominos, the campaigns for mayor of Honolulu run by Mufi Hannemann, Duke Bainum and Keith Kaneshiro fell apart because with Harris still in office, the mayorship is not vacant. The other major candidate for mayor, Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono, said she was back in the race for the state's top job.
But Hirono had been chased out of the race once already after she said she couldn't raise enough money to win against Republican Linda Lingle.
Because Harris was the top Democrat in the race for governor, his departure creates a vacuum that no one is readily able to fill.
"The next 48 hours will be critical for anyone who can galvanize the party," one Harris supporter said.
Already, former city Managing Director D.G. "Andy" Anderson says he is looking for Harris' former supporters to help his campaign for governor.
DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Mayor Jeremy Harris and his wife, Ramona, returned to his office at Honolulu Hale yesterday after he announced that he was dropping out of the governor's race.
But the alliances are going to be tricky.
The United Public Workers, which was strongly behind Hirono, declared their support for Anderson after Hirono bailed out. The Hawaii Government Employees Association leadership, which also was close to Hirono, hasn't made an endorsement yet.
Russell Okata, HGEA executive director, at first described the Democrats as being "in deep trouble," but he modified it to being "in deep disarray," after recalling how a fractured state Legislature was able to pass a series of bills to regulate health insurance and the price of gasoline.
But the fact remains that two of the state's top Democrats have flinched in the face of Lingle's campaign.
She was campaigning on Maui yesterday when the Harris bombshell exploded. She is warning supporters that the Harris departure doesn't change her campaign.
"Democrats have held the governorship for 40 years. This is going to be a tough, tough campaign -- they are experienced, and they have been in tough situations before.
"So it is time to continue to talk about the issues in the campaign," Lingle said.
There is also speculation that others could jump into the race for governor, including Democratic Congressman Neil Abercrombie and state Sen. Matt Matsunaga, who is considering a race for lieutenant governor.
At a news conference yesterday, Gov. Ben Cayetano sought to hold the party together, saying that while Abercrombie would be a strong candidate, he has built up a measure of seniority in Congress and is valuable to Hawaii in Washington.
And while Cayetano took pains to praise the three Democrats -- Anderson, Hirono and Rep. Ed Case (D, Manoa) -- he added that the campaign could see an opening for another candidate.
Meanwhile, the former candidates for mayor have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and organized their own supporters, so they, like Hirono, will be looking for other races to enter.
Hannemann, who is a former Council chairman, could either run for the state Senate or for Congress. Four years ago, he had discussions with the Republican Party, and there is always the option of switching parties for a congressional campaign.
Bainum is a well-financed candidate who could move into a state Senate race that includes a portion of his old Council district and state House districts.
Lingle, who is stressing the need for a two-party political system in Hawaii, says the sudden shifts in Hawaii's politics are the result of a new context of the elections.
"When you have a two-party system, you have tougher races, and people just can't step in to another office just because they have been in another office," Lingle said.
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DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Mayor Jeremy Harris, supported by his wife, Ramona, left, ended his campaign for governor yesterday, a decision he said he reached only after painful deliberation.
Hawaii Democrats enter their state convention this afternoon still reeling from the surprise announcement by Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris to withdraw from the governor's race. The mayor cites lagging
polls as his reason for calling
off his run for governorBy Gordon Y.K. Pang
gpang@starbulletin.comHarris was the acknowledged front-runner for the Democratic nomination when the mayor told reporters on the steps of Honolulu Hale yesterday afternoon that polls showed he could not win because he was 22 percentage points behind GOP front-runner Linda Lingle.
"About a year ago, all the polls showed that pretty much I was the only Democratic candidate who could beat the Republican challenger in November," Harris said during an eight-minute press conference.
"My role really was to be the standard-bearer for the party in that gubernatorial race," the mayor said. "Well, as you know, since that time my campaign has hit many bumps in the road."
Governor Ben Cayetano said the timing of Harris' announcement could have been better.
"I think it would have been helpful if (his decision) was made earlier, but he has his reasons, and the fact is that it doesn't matter when he made it," Cayetano said. "He made it, and now Democrats have to pull together and move on."
Harris mentioned the legal challenge brought by former Judge Russell Blair, who charged that the state's resign-to-run law required him to leave the mayor's seat as soon as he announced his intentions for governor. The Supreme Court later dismissed the suit.
"I can't in good conscience ask all of my supporters to go out and give their hearts and souls for a campaign that I don't believe that I can now win," said Harris, who was undefeated in three Oahu mayoral races.
The mayor did not mention specifically the investigations into his campaign finances by federal and city authorities. But in response to questions, Harris said he did not expect any indictments from those investigations.
Asked later why there has been a drop in his popularity, Harris said, "Well, it's probably a year of bad publicity." He declined to blame the investigations specifically.
"Folks, politics is a rough-and-tumble sport, and Democratic primaries have traditionally been very rough and tumble, so I don't have any recriminations or blame on why our numbers have fallen and why we're no longer able to beat Linda Lingle in the general. The fact of the matter is, that's just the way it turned it out, and I think my responsibility is to do what's right."
Harris also said he needed to focus on city matters.
"I love this city more than anything in the world, next to this lady beside me," he said, nodding at his wife, Ramona.
"My vision was always to turn over this city to the next mayor in a condition that was unassailable, and I've worked to do that and I think we've done that," Harris said. "But in this recent budget debate, it's become clear that members of the City Council and others feel that the finances of the city are going to cause problems in the years ahead."
Council members, led by Budget Committee Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi, have bashed the administration in recent months, blaming it for creating future debt that another mayor would have to deal with.
Some Council members predicted that the city would enter next year's budget discussions with a $185 million shortfall.
"Some people think that I am leaving in the lurch if I resign now to run for governor. Well, I don't intend to do that," Harris said yesterday.
He said he was not pressured to leave the race.
"No one's asked me to step aside," he said.
Cayetano said the mayor's drop in popularity can be traced to the 10 weeks that Harris put his campaign on hold as a result of the Blair challenge and the original ruling by Circuit Judge Sabrina McKenna that Harris should have resigned upon announcing his gubernatorial plans.
"When you're gone for 10 weeks and you're not doing anything -- and I, publicly, kept expressing the hope that he would begin to campaign -- that kind of breaks the momentum, and I think that may have hurt him because people begin to speculate all kinds of things," Cayetano said.
Nonetheless, the governor said, a 22-point deficit was far from insurmountable.
Asked by reporters if he had ever been so far behind in a political race, Cayetano said that in his last three races, he was farther behind than Harris and won.
Councilman John Henry Felix called the polls a "specious argument." He noted that Frank Fasi was far behind then-Mayor Eileen Anderson in 1980 when he pulled out a victory, as did John Waihee when he beat Cec Heftel for the Democratic primary in 1986.
Felix speculated that there must have been other reasons for Harris to drop out.
"If ever there was a tenacious campaigner, it was Jeremy Harris," Felix said. "There must be some other reason that's truly compelling and significant."
However, Jim Wang, a political science professor at the University of Hawaii-Hilo, said Harris' explanation is plausible.
"He probably would have had a tough race if he stayed in there," Wang said, but added "maybe there are other reasons why he doesn't want to run."
The announcement stunned the state's political world, including no less than six people who had planned to run this fall for the remaining two years in Harris' mayoral term.
"I was very surprised," former Councilman Mufi Hannemann said yesterday. "That's why I was campaigning in Kaneohe today when I got a call that it might happen."
Harris said he is not prepared to support a gubernatorial candidate yet.
"In fact, there may be new candidates that enter the race now that I'm stepping aside," he said.
He said he did not intend to get out of politics. "As you know, my term as mayor runs until 2005, and a lot of things can happen in elected office. I certainly intend to stay in the political arena."
One group of people with extremely mixed emotions about the decision was Harris' Cabinet members, who now have jobs through January 2005.
Several acknowledged they were unaware of Harris' intention until a 3 p.m. Cabinet meeting before his press conference.
Salvatore Lanzilotti, Harris' director of emergency services, said: "I'm sad for the state of Hawaii. I've been with the mayor since 1988, and so I know he's a good man, an honorable man, and I know he has given his life to improving the city."
On the other hand, he said, "I look forward to finishing lots of projects I've started under this administration."
Star-Bulletin reporters Crystal Kua, Rod Antone, Richard Borreca and Rick Daysog contributed to this story.
