In her own words:
“I think I’m of the same breed as McCain and Palin.”
Linda Lingle, September 2008.
Lingle’s current U.S. Senate campaign would prefer to forget all of the fawning over Sarah Palin, and “palling around” with the rest of the Republican right.
Let’s just keeping reminding people of Lingle’s actual record.
Her campaign now proclaims:
“People Come First, and Linda Lingle is Listening.”
Tell that to the parents, students, and community supporters who staged a sit-in at Gov. Lingle’s office to protest teacher furloughs and cancelled school days.
“Gov. Lingle told us that she would not meet with people like us. People like us? We’re regular people. We speak for 170,000 school students in Hawai’i. We are your constituents. It is your job to listen to us.”
Marguerite Higa, one of the women arrested for refusing to leave the governor’s office.
Warning: Low signal to noise ratio.
Pleased to see there are some real memories out there. Also remember those trips to China and most expensive booze bills , the sordid Awana affair and Super Ferry fiasco. She was a full load.
She really, really should have been a lawyer. (And I squirm about having to choose Mazie as a slightly less undesirable US Senator.)
She is also running one of the most overtly negative and personal campaigns I can remember in some time. I realize that?s said so often it has lost value, but all of this “Mazie is a zero” stuff…just cheap and bitter and lacking in any kind of class.
What’s the surprise here, Ian? Lingle’s a Republican – why do you expect her to not ‘pal around’ with the Republicans – left, center, or right? Believe it or not, there are a few Republicans in this State who actually like her – as well as a few Democrats. She did get re-elected as Governor – remember? Lingle’s good points (I thought) outweighed her bad, but all that said, I’m still officially undecided. However, Mazie has been our CD2 rep for – how long now? and I still don’t know what she’s done for Hawaii – or the USA.
What Hirono has done is VOTE for supporting our troops by not going to war & then by bringing them HOME ASAP. Why is US in Afghanistan for TEN YEARS? Defending our freedom or supporting armaments industries?
Lingle thinks we have no memory of her term as Gov. Just keep saying “Superferry” and ” furlough Fridays”. Her claim to work together is a joke. Mitch McConnell would make that loud and clear.
I strongly urge the people of Hawaii to vote for the Democrat candidates for U.S. Senate and U.S. House in November 2012: Mazie Hirono, Colleen Hanabusa, and Tulsi Gabbard. Strange though it may seem, I especially appeal to Republicans and conservative independents to vote for these far-left Democrats in those contests. It’s not enough for people to stay home or leave those contests blank on the ballot — the Democrat candidates need to get more votes than Lingle, Djou, and Crowley.
The three Republican candidates for U.S. Senate and House all strongly favor the Akaka bill and the Hawaiian racial entitlements. The Akaka bill and racial entitlement programs are the most dangerous federal issues threatening to rip apart the lands and people of Hawaii. Lingle and Djou are better than Hirono and Hanabusa on conservative concerns like the budget deficit. But ask the people of Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, Sri Lanka, and Fiji which is more important: budget deficits or ethnic strife?
The candidates nominated by the Hawaii Republican Party for U.S. Senate and House are dangerous. Even if it turns out that the Senate has 51 Democrats because Lingle has lost, and the House has 218 Democrats because Djou and Crowley have lost, that’s a price worth paying to avoid the terrible damage those three Republicans would do.
Why is Lingle uncompromisingly zealous for the Akaka bill? How hard did she push for it as her top priority for 8 years as Governor? What did Djou say in an interview on the OHA radio program about pushing for the Akaka bill and expanding the racial entitlements? See details at
http://tinyurl.com/9299363
Yes, vote Democratic every chance you get.
Campaigning against Lingle should be so easy, anyone could do it blindfolded. Unfortunately for Hirono, she has too many mainland folks who are in charge of her media and keep missing their mark. Lucky for Hirono, Klompus’ messaging is getting stale and predictable, and it does hurt when the product they are selling is worn out.
Regardless of whether folks like her politics, Lingle has the possibility of being a very powerful Senator. For whatever reason, my gut says that won’t happen for Hirono. Just one opinion.
Mazie is not anyone I would enthursiastically support for any office altbough I did vote for her in 2002 when she ran for governor after winning the Democratic nomination.
However, she was #10 on my list of ten candidates who ran for the Second Congressional District in 2006 when Ed Case decided to run for the United States Senate seat held by Dan Akaka.
She is one dimensional – and that’s probably not a particularly bad thing when being Lt. Governor or even in the State House or the U.S. House.
But we need strong positive prog-lib leaders in the Senate – and that simply is not Mazie although she’ll probably vote The Correct Way.
I am still deciding whether to vote NOTA – don’t do GOPPERS – or go ahead & hold my nose & vote for Mazie in the General Election.
(Just do it.) Vote for Mazie. Thank you very much.
CWD,
Let me see if I understand your reasoning. COrrect me if I am wrong at any step as I reducee it to a few “logical” steps.
Because Mazie is not, in your view, “a strong positive prog-lib leader,” you are considering not voting in that race.
And if the election were to go to Lingle, how would that advance the “prog-lib” agenda you would like to see the Senate pass?
And if the GOP manages to win the Senate with Lingle’s election, how would THAT make things better?
I suspect, but cannot prove, you have an exaggerated sense of the influence your NOTA decisions actually have on the real world. But, maybe, just maybe, Saint Peter or Santa Claus has an open notebook and takes careful notes on everything you do as you move through life.
There is absolutely no choice but to vote of Mazie, as problematical a candidate as she may be. The Republicans have turned Congress into a de facto parliamentary system; all that matters is that the Democrats have a majority however many listless and ineffectual quorum makers like Hirono it takes. I will never forget how Lingle cozied up to Bush, and I would vote for absolutely anybody over her. I have several friends who, like myself, voted for her in 2002, and we have been crippled with regret ever since. We sadly live in an era when party trumps the individual.
Even more sadly, that era has lasted longer than a century.
Andrew Johnson did not identify with the two main parties.
When did he serve?
April 15, 1865 March 4, 1869
barf.
Have to agree with you Ian. Can not vote for any Republican.
Glad you’re reminding us of the historical record.
Even though Lingle is about as moderate as you can be these days and still be called a Republican, when she cut state employees by about 5 per cent she cut child welfare staff by 40 per cent in some offices. So the “people” who “come first” don’t include abused and neglected children. Mazie is as useless as she can be, but I’ll still vote for her.
This post is entirely one-sided and practices omission. Got to agree with aikea808 and Bill.
Many comments talk about how HIRONO DOES NOTHING, yet these commenters would vote for Hirono just because LINGLE DOES SOMETHING that they don’t entirely agree with. Why would you vote for an impotent candidate for U.S. Senator?
As a Senator, Lingle would have to represent us or the majority. We might not all like what she decides for us in the end, but it’s not like we can’t contact her about it (in other ways besides sitting outside her office). I’ve read in the Honolulu Weekly how Hirono left a secretary to tell someone trying to contact her about a deployed relative to go contact someone else (Hanabusa) about it. In the end, neither Hirono nor Hanabusa got back to that person. I believe Lingle would have done something, even if it wasn’t immediate or in the way the contacting person would have liked. Lingle did do something about the Furlough Fridays. This post really cuts her short.