Lingle, gov
spar over tactics

Both sides accuse each other
of using news releases
for unethical campaigning

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By Richard Borreca
rborreca@starbulletin.com

In what has become a battle of the press releases, Gov. Ben Cayetano and supporters of Republican candidate for governor Linda Lingle held back-to-back news conferences yesterday attacking each other for unethical campaigning.

Yesterday, Cayetano showed a 1998 Maui County news release prepared while Lingle was mayor that takes a political tack in responding to allegations made by Cayetano's 1998 campaign for governor.

"Mayor Linda Lingle today called a recent news release from Ben Cayetano's re-election coordinators a prelude to the upcoming multimillion-dollar negative campaign that Cayetano is planning," the 4-year-old release said.

"Look at this," Cayetano said, pointing to a 3-foot blowup of the release yesterday. "It is blatantly political; for her to accuse me of using state resources is the height of hypocrisy."

The Cayetano campaign protested the Lingle release four years ago, the governor said.

All this is crucial, Cayetano said, because the GOP plans to file charges Monday with the state Ethics Commission claiming that Cayetano violated state law by ordering his Cabinet officers to research a Lingle campaign plan.

Cayetano blasted the plan Monday in a news conference at his office, saying Lingle's tax breaks would not work.

In a news conference later that day, Lingle questioned Cayetano's actions, saying his use of state workers was illegal.

Cayetano said his actions were proper because "when people attack the administration, as governor I have the right to defend my position and the administration with the full force of the state government -- just as she did in 1998 with the full force of the county government."

In a news conference yesterday, Lloyd Yonenaka, Lingle's press secretary in 1998 who is now serving in the same capacity for the Lingle campaign, said he merely wrote up a news release and did not do much research for it.

"It is a question of degree. We didn't use the entire force of county government, and we were in the middle of a campaign. The governor is doing this because he got caught using state resources," Yonenaka said.

Micah Kane, GOP chairman, said Cayetano was "abusing government employees. It was a blatant abuse of government."