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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, August 4, 2002

Lingle, Cayetano avoiding real debate

By Jerry Burris
Advertiser Editorial Editor

Are you enjoying the campaign for governor between Ben Cayetano and Linda Lingle?

What's that, you say? There's no campaign between Cayetano and Lingle? You say Cayetano isn't running for anything. He's got a few months left in his term as governor and then he's pau.

True enough. But you'd hardly know it from what's been in the news recently.

Lingle, clearly looking past her primary with John Carroll, has been campaigning steadily against the Democratic establishment and, more specifically, against the current regime in state government.

Whether she uses his name or not, that means Ben.

For instance, in her "New Beginning" omnibus campaign platform, she focuses first on "restoring trust in government." For several pages she denounces "dishonest and sometimes criminal behavior" by government officials, favoritism and cronyism, and a "lack of integrity in government."

Since Lingle is running for governor, Cayetano understandably might have concluded she was talking about him.

The other, actual, candidates had some generalized criticism of the Lingle plan. One assumes there will be more detailed critiques when they meet on the campaign trail.

But the first detailed look — and it was a critical one — came from He Whose Ox Had Been Gored. Cayetano focused specifically on Lingle's tax proposals, arguing that her tax cut and spending plan adds up to a big fiscal hole for the state. It won't work, he contended.

That may or may not be true. Probably the financial plan is not as perfect as Lingle would have you believe but not as disastrous as Cayetano would contend.

But rather than sort this out or defend the numbers, Lingle responded, cleverly, by changing the topic of the conversation entirely.

Cayetano, she charged, had violated the ethics laws by having his tax department do the research that formed the basis of his critique.

It was, said Lingle, state workers on public time doing research for a political hit piece. The buzz immediately shifted from the merits of her tax plan to the ethics and behavior of the sitting governor.

Never one to pass up the opportunity to enjoy a good fight, Cayetano kept things simmering nicely. He summoned reporters to his office to point out that years ago, when Lingle still was in office as Maui mayor and running against Cayetano, she issued her own "political" press release on county time and county stationery.

Again, a nice piece of misdirection. Lingle managed to get the debate over her tax plans shifted to a debate over Cayetano's ethics. Then Cayetano got the argument shifted from his ethics to Lingle's.

In a very few months, we will have elected a new governor. And it won't be Ben Cayetano. It is time to get the campaign back on track.

Reach Jerry Burris through letters@honoluluadvertiser.com.