This was the ad flashing on the main page of StarAdvertiser.com Sunday morning.
Deceptive? Misleading? Taken as part of Lingle’s package of Inouye-related video, tweets, etc. of the past several days, I think the answer is definitely “yes”.
But my nominee for the Spinmeister of the Week was Lingle campaign manager Bob Lee for his attempt to dismiss worries that a vote for Lingle is a vote for a GOP takeover of the Senate, which would result in stripping Hawaii Senator Dan Inouye of his position as chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee.
First, Lee makes the loss of Inouye’s position as chair sound like a promotion, according to a transcript of the ad provided by Civil Beat.
As the current chair of the Appropriations Committee, Sen. Inouye would become the ranking member on that committee should the Republicans gain the majority.
A promotion to ranking member. I suppose we’re supposed to believe that’s a good thing.
Lee then goes on to suggest that commenting on the loss of Hawaii’s clout in the Senate in the event of a Republican takeover shows disrespect for Inouye.
Quoting an AP story:
Lingle’s ad cast her as a moderate, with campaign manager Bob Lee saying in the spot posted online that even if the GOP wins a majority in the Senate, Inouye, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and third in line for the presidency, would still be a powerful figure as the top Democrat on that panel.
“Anything else said is disrespectful to the senior senator,” Lee said.
I’m still trying to wrap my brain around that bit of campaign bull.
Lingle’s campaign is saying that its continued use of misleading images and advertising suggesting a nonexistent political tie with Senator Inouye, or even the support of the senator,continuing days after the senator publicly objected, is not disrespectful. But pointing out that every vote for Lingle is a potential vote for a GOP majority and all that means is “disrespectful to the senior senator,” or so the Lingle campaign would have us believe.
That is a very skillful bit of campaign gobbledygook, but I think it reflects badly on candidate Lingle, who is slowly diminishing her own stature through such misleading campaign tactics.
Discover more from i L i n d
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Vote for Hirono and support Our President.
Lingle claimed early in this election that the Democratic legislature had promised her during her tenure as Governor that there would be no school furloughs, and that she had thus been misled by them. Civil Beat has pointed out in their Fact Check that this cannot be confirmed. But, first of all, Lingle never spoke up about this when she was in office, which she probably would have or at least should have, in the face of her then-growing unpopularity. Secondly, now we see a pattern of deceit emerging in her rhetoric. So she might have been lying about the furloughs being out of her control. Deceit is not something I’ve ever seen Lingle do, she was squeaky clean as Governor. It’s a disappointment, and proof perhaps of panic on her part at the probability of losing.
One gets a sense that Lingle miscalculated at running for this office. She might have assumed that as a former governor, she would naturally have the stature to get elected as a senator. This is an uncritical assumption. Also, she must have assumed that since she beat Hirono in a gubernatorial race, she would be able to do the same handily in a congressional race. She also did not seem to think that local voters would notice that adding a Republican to the Senate would potentially throw the Senate into Republican hands, negating Hawaii’s influence there.
When she ran for governor, she knew what she was up against, like David against Goliath. She was thoughtful, sober, calculating and disciplined. But this time she seems to have perhaps gotten carried away with her ambition and excitement. In fact, at this point, if she had been cautious enough like Mufi Hannemann to run for the lower office of the House, she still might lose to Tulsi Gabbard. That’s how volatile and unpredictable the political arena is. Every single politician knows this, that in politics “one week is an eternity” because anything can happen. But Lingle might have forgotten this. The problem might be the ego of a successful politician, coupled with her tendency toward simplistic thinking.
I suspect that Lingle might have forgotten just how lucky she was in getting elected. If there had not been a severe economic crisis in the 1990s, and the widespread perception that the local Democratic Party had lost its vigor and purpose and that something – anything – needed to change, she might have been just another Republican candidate who would get a single digit percentage of the votes. I also get the sense that this sort of “enough is enough” sentiment that contributed to Lingle’s election into office is at work in Tulsi Gabbard’s victory. People absolutely are sick of the old machine politicians.
However, they still want the old machine! They would never have voted for Tulsi Gabbard, I think, if she had remained a Republican. The only way to beat Hirono would be for Lingle to become a Democrat. The idea popular at the time of Lingle’s initial victory was that Hawaii was finally “growing up” and developing an American two-party system, as if this were the goal or end-point of human history, even though the two-party system is a relative anomaly in the world. This might be yet another mistaken notion based on habit and ethnocentrism.
It’s an interesting idea that perhaps local voters might turn against the old guard, but want to keep its machinery in place. There might be some truth to that. But in terms of Tulsi Gabbard’s primary win, an equally important factor is youth appeal and perceived charisma.
If one thinks it over, only in certain crucial offices will local voters desire non-machine candidates. Politicians don’t have a lot of freedom in Hawaii in what they can say and do. They have to go along and get along to survive. So there are not a lot of options in who to vote for, and people seem used to that. But when it comes to the office of Governor, local voters will draw the line. And its not an ideological thing. The same moderate voters who voted for Lingle might just vote for Abercrombie, regardless of ideology. They want “balance”, as Duke Aiona promised, but not necessarily ideological balance. They want an outspoken outsider in the governor’s seat, not a nice Republican like Aiona.
This might mean that Lingle is wasting her time in any Congressional run. There is no motivating reason for local voters to put an outsider into Congress. The same is true with Ed Case. Interestingly, by this logic, Ed Case in another life might have been elected to the governor’s seat! And the same might go for Charles Djou, who might be wasting his time running for Congress.
But something interesting might be happening in Honolulu Hale. The same logic of resigning oneself to voting for insiders in most elections except for the gubernatorial election might also be at work in the mayor’s race. Local voters might vote for any fool for the City Council as long as they are not too corrupt or too mentally ill or retarded. In contrast, many Oahu voters now might want a maverick in the mayor’s seat just like they want one in the governor’s mansion. In fact, that logic might account for Frank Fasi’s career success in the past as mayor.
One question might be whether this tendency will spread to other political offices. I cannot imagine it could. The leadership positions in the legislature are all about being an insider and collaborator. Only the mayor and governor can be outsiders elected by popular vote. (One tactic by the political machine would be to run a faux maverick, like Andy Anderson, to run against a real outsider like Jeremy Harris. Running a spoiler like that is one of the oldest tricks in the book. So we might see more of that if these races continue to fall to outsiders like Lingle and Abercrombie.)