Lingle regrets Republican gubernatorial candidate Linda Lingle says if she had to do it all again, she would not have used county resources as Maui mayor in 1998 to issue a "political" news release against Gov. Ben Cayetano.
past news release
She says that she responded
improperly to Cayetano’s politics
as Maui mayor in ’98By Pat Omandam
pomandam@starbulletin.com"This is too political to come out of a government office. It's one piece of paper in a year-and-a-half campaign. And if I had to do it again, I wouldn't do this," Lingle said.
"I guess I was responding to him being pretty political to us. You know, in the '98 race, I don't know if you all recall, but he put the entire state work force in the employ of his campaign, basically," Lingle told Star-Bulletin editors and reporters at an editorial board meeting yesterday.
The 1998 news release was the crux of the ethics and campaign spending complaints filed against Lingle earlier this week by the Democratic Party of Hawaii.
"Linda Lingle has made ethics a very cornerstone of her message, in fact in her vision plan. And it has become a big issue in this election," said Lorraine Akiba, Democratic Party chairwoman.
Those complaints came after Hawaii Republicans filed an ethics complaint against Cayetano earlier this month for using state resources to analyze the impact of proposed state budget plans of gubernatorial candidates.
Lingle's plan was the first to be analyzed. She said yesterday the governor used state resources to analyze her plans for the benefit of the three major Democratic gubernatorial candidates.
Cayetano has yet to release an analysis of any other gubernatorial candidate's plans.
Lingle said Cayetano's criticism of her plans for improving state government had an unexpected benefit: It prompted a second printing of 25,000 copies for her campaign booklet, "A New Beginning for Hawaii."
"People want to have it," she said.
In 1998, Lingle lost to Cayetano by about 5,000 votes in the closest gubernatorial race in state history. In retrospect, Lingle said, she made two mistakes. The first was thinking Cayetano was her opponent in the general election, when it was the entire Democratic Party and the public labor unions that supported the party.
The second, she said, was agreeing to the voluntary campaign spending limits for governor that restricted her spending to about $1.7 million, which was about $2 million less than what Cayetano spent, she said.
People have since told Lingle she should have ignored the spending limit in an all-out effort to win the governor's seat. But that was never an option, she said. "Well, I can't run as a person whose going to bring reform and integrity, and the first time I'm faced with it, I just say, 'Forget it, I've got to win this race.' "
Among the many things different for Lingle in this campaign from four years ago is the endorsement of the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers. It was the first time SHOPO supported a Republican for Hawaii governor.
Lingle notes that as mayor, she did not lay off a single county worker. If elected as governor, she stressed she would not lay off any state workers, saying she does not want to be the head of a work force that is afraid of losing their jobs.
One area, however, that will face scrutiny is the reported 1,800 vacant positions in state government that are fully funded but not used. Lingle said these "phantom positions" allow departments to use the money for these posts for other departmental uses, and she wants to eliminate them.
In response to criticism from other gubernatorial candidates that she does not want to debate them, Lingle said her campaign strategy is to participate in debates after the Sept. 21 primary elections. Lingle said she is already confirmed for no less than six such debates after the primary election, including a live TV debate on Oct. 25.
Hawaii State Ethics Commission