[ OUR OPINION ]

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Moderation needed
to close nation’s rift

THE ISSUE President Bush and Sen. John Kerry have spoken of the need to end the polarization.

PRESIDENT Bush and Sen. John Kerry were conciliatory after the votes were counted, but the possibility of healing America's fractured electorate is slim. The messages from Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. John Edwards, Kerry's running mate, were more candid: The battle will continue. The question is whether Bush can bend his rigid policies without betraying his pledge to continue them.

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In his call congratulating Bush, Kerry said they "talked about the danger of division in our country and the need, the desperate need, for unity, for finding the common ground, coming together." Bush said in his victory speech that he would "require the broad support of Americans" to end that division. "I will need your support and I will work to earn it," he told Kerry voters.

However, Bush also promised to rewrite the tax code, "strengthen (read privatize) Social Security" and "uphold our deepest values of family and faith," code words for opposition to abortion and stem-cell research. Kerry supporters strongly oppose those positions.

While Cheney said the president won a mandate for his "clear agenda for this nation's future," Edwards declared, "The fight has just begun." These words paint a clearer picture of what is likely to occur in Congress, where Republicans won a larger majority in both houses but Senate Democrats retain enough votes to filibuster.

Bush's best opportunity to reach out was presented by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who asked Bush to "re-engage" America in seeking peace in the Middle East, calling it "the single most pressing challenge in our world." Bush now can take a more evenhanded stance, with the Florida vote, and its large number of Jewish residents, no longer at risk. A new generation of Palestinian leadership to succeed Yasser Arafat, ailing in a Paris hospital, could facilitate such a policy change.

On domestic matters, the partisan divide could be crossed with Bush's selection of justices for the Supreme Court. The first vacancy might come soon. Chief Justice William Rehnquist is absent from the current session while undergoing treatment for thyroid cancer.

Bush has cited the high court's most conservative members, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, as his models. Nomination of moderates to the court is needed for bipartisan support and would go a long way toward earning the broader backing he says he desires.

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New mayor will have
a tough row to hoe

THE ISSUE Mufi Hannemann will be Honolulu's next mayor.

Mufi Hannemann campaigned long and hard to win the top spot at City Hall. He'll have to work even harder now that the job is his. The mayor-elect of Honolulu will face a host of problems confronting the city, none of which is likely to be easily resolved, but they aren't beyond fixing if he can draw stakeholders together.

In the most expensive mayoral race in Honolulu's history, Hannemann squeezed by former City Council member Duke Bainum to succeed Jeremy Harris, winning by about 1,350 of the 295,000 ballots cast. Though the close margin hands him a seemingly lukewarm endorsement, Hannemann and Bainum held similar stances on the key city issues and there is no reason to believe voters won't support him.

The laundry list of challenges Hannemann will find on his desk range widely -- from the costly repair of the city's aging sewer system and the need for its expansion to support new development to filling in potholes.

Chief among them is the growing mess of traffic on Oahu, which will require short- and long-term solutions in coordination with the Council, the state Legislature and the Lingle administration. Hannemann will have to seek consensus from these decision-makers as well as from taxpayers, business interests and public employee unions to adopt his strategy to reduce gridlock, an undertaking that has eluded previous leaders.

Hannemann has promised he will take care of the city's nuts and bolts and shun projects he describes as "nice to have" to control spending. Nonetheless, years of deferred tax and fee increases has shorted the city's coffers, and bills -- like those for sewage treatment plants -- are about to come due.

For his election victory, Hannemann deserves kudos and well wishes -- but also a bit of sympathy.