On Politics
BY RICHARD BORRECA
Cayetano is not
fading away quietlyIn 50 days and 12 hours Hawaii will have a new governor, a calculation that may be a bit startling to Gov. Ben Cayetano, who has become one of Hawaii's most hyperactive and partisan lame- duck chief executives.
Cayetano promised that he would not go quietly and his constant pushing and tugging at state government up to the last moment proves his resolve. It wouldn't be surprising to see him giving orders at one minute to noon on Dec. 2.
Just this week he proposed closing or privatizing five tiny state airports in an effort to save money. There's a strong rationale for doing that now, but unless the governor doubles the caffeine in the coffee pots at the state Department of Transportation, it isn't likely that anything will happen with the airports before he leaves office.
The new governor will have her own ideas for handling airports and isn't likely to take much stock in Cayetano's plans. Just like Cayetano was forced to rewrite outgoing Gov. John Waihee's budget, the new governor, either Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono or Republican Linda Lingle, will readjust whatever it is that Cayetano has written.
The governor, however, is leaving another imprint on the election as he continues to interject himself into the political season.
Tom Coffman, author of several superb books on Hawaii's politics and a former political reporter for the Star-Bulletin, calls Cayetano the "ad hoc force that keeps popping up on the scene and creating new stories."
"It is as if Ben is running for governor again," Coffman said.
"He has this compulsion to actually comment on and criticize all the candidates. Other governors have quietly supported someone to be their successor and wrapped up their business, and I think there is some virtue in that," Coffman said.
Cayetano would tell you he has only commented as needed, and he didn't take the job to be a "potted plant" anyway, but there is good political sense in making a quiet exit.
It is almost as if Cayetano himself is fighting for a third term in office, with the campaign motto: "Hell, no, we won't go."
First, Cayetano, by adding Hirono's platform to the list of topics he analyzed and then criticized for having "few specifics," he offered the Republicans an easy target. They just scooped up his remarks and ran them as a TV commercial.
Next, Cayetano trained his guns on Lingle, firing off press releases that included criticism of her and the GOP as he sought to come up with a plan for a special election to replace the late Congresswoman Patsy Mink.
Finally, on Friday Cayetano weighed in on the Lingle smear story. After Lingle complained about getting hate mail saying she is gay, the governor said that Lingle was actually "denigrating gays and lesbians" by saying that being portrayed as being gay was something "one should be ashamed about."
It may be that the first piece of work to be done by the new governor on that first Monday in December will be to pry the governor's fingers off the Washington Place doorjambs.
Richard Borreca writes on politics every Sunday in the Star-Bulletin.
He can be reached at 525-8630 or by e-mail at rborreca@starbulletin.com.
