Honolulu Lite
Bill and Rudy’s strange
Hawaii adventureAll politics is local, as the saying goes. So why are both of Hawaii's major political parties bringing in bigshot national political figures -- ringers, really -- to wow local voters on the eve of the general election?
Both Republicans and Democrats expect the race for governor to be tighter than a bus driver's belt line. They are looking for an 11th-hour edge that might just tip the election their way. Which is why Hawaii Democrats have tapped Bill Clinton as their ninth-inning closer and Republicans are going to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani as their 2-minute warning quarterback. (Let's see, 11th hour, ninth inning, 2-minute warning ... any other clichés I've forgotten?)
The purpose of Bill and Rudy's Excellent Hawaii Adventure is to convince voters that Hawaii is a major player on the national political stage. Or maybe it's just a chance for the gubernatorial candidates to show they have friends in high places.
The last presidential election showed that voters in just one state can have a huge impact on a national election. It's fun to think that maybe the outcome of a national election would turn on how the three or four voters who bother to turn out in Hawaii cast their ballots. With one of the lowest voter turnouts in the country, at least counting chads in Hawaii would only take the lesser part of one morning.
HAVING POLITICAL gorillas like Clinton and Giuliani come to Hawaii at the very least will shame some of those more than 400,000 eligible voters who refused to participate in the last election for governor to go to the polls.
The bad thing is that we'll have to listen to a couple of out-of-town haoles tell us what is good for us. And it could get nasty.
Clinton will issue dire warnings that if Democrats don't hang on to power in Hawaii, unions will be outlawed, people will be forced back onto plantations with whips, babies will be deprived of milk and widows will be tied to railroad tracks. Giuliani will point out darkly that half of Hawaii Democrats are in the slammer on corruption charges and the rest are under grand jury investigation.
It will be a Festival of Hyperbole, like Sunset on the Beach without the fun or the movie.
Giuliani brings more credibility to the proceedings since he is a legitimate American hero who stood on the front line of terrorism during the country's darkest days. Clinton, unfortunately, has that impeachment thing hanging around his neck like an a albatross lei. And his glandular escapades while in office have washed away any moral high road he might like to take to warn Hawaii voters of the evils of Republicans.
Nevertheless, we love it when celebrities visit Hawaii, even if it is only a cameo appearance just before the campaign final curtain drops. (Ah, that's the cliché we were missing.)
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com