COMMENTARY
Taking one's stand - right from the heart
By Evan Dobelle
University of Hawai'i President
When I returned from lunch and saw the police standing around my car with the hood open, I began to think that endorsing a candidate for high office that would cause a bomb threat to be somewhat over the top.
Advertiser library photo • Aug. 12, 2001
I had endured the angry letters to the editor and the extraordinary insults on talk-radio shows because there was an element of rightful indignation I understood; at least among those who were not were using those forums to get back at me for what I considered principled stands I had taken on social justice issues.
UH President Evan Dobelle's endorsement of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mazie Hirono led to criticism from others, including GOP candidate Linda Lingle, who on Nov. 5 was elected governor.
The newspaper columns and comments were predictable. The rumors abounded that a powerful senior senator coerced me to do it, a legendary former governor leaned on our friendship, that the labor unions who were always supportive called in favors. But the reality was, if indeed it was a mistake in judgment to endorse, it was not one of political calculation but straight from the heart.
Some told me I should resign and leave town. It was witch-hunt rhetoric. Regardless, I kept my own counsel. I looked straight ahead. I never raised my voice. I never struck back or was defensive. I was never rude.
Memories fade, for 27 years have now passed since that time, when in my second term as the youngest mayor in the country for the 58,000 people in Pittsfield, Mass., I switched parties from lifelong reform Republican to Democrat to support an unknown former one-term governor of Georgia for president of the United States. I never have regretted that decision, nor would have had he been denied nomination or election.
It wasn't personal toward Jerry Ford, who was so close to my good friend and congressman, the late Sil Conte. It was all about Jimmy's integrity and honor and not running from the outside, but maintaining independence and making a difference from the inside during difficult times.
As our 39th president stood and was awarded the much-deserved Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, I smiled at how relentless and resolute he has been in seeking virtue in government. He continues to abide comment on his four-year term substituted with admiration as the best former president. The record, however, as history always shows, is so much different from the perception.
There are some achievements so great that it takes perspective to understand them. I believe Carter's presidency was marked by many such achievements, and by the unwavering commitment to international cooperation that inspired them.
He was the first U.S. president to state that while unwavering in his support of Israel, the Palestinian people deserved a homeland — and that only through this achievement could the interconnected goal of Israeli security be reached.
He insisted on normalizing relations with China, laying the groundwork for the diplomatic and economic relationship that many feel will be the United States' most important in this century. He made human rights central to our relations with the world and particularly with the then-Soviet Union, angering many in the Cold War establishment.
He was the toughest man I have ever met in politics one on one.
Our nation's present leaders would be wise to consider the lessons of Carter's time in office. Despite the worldwide outpouring of sympathy for our country after 9/11, disapproval of the United States is sharply on the rise. A Pew Global Attitudes Survey of more than 38,000 people in 44 countries has found our image tarnished in all types of nations: not only the Muslim societies of North Africa and the Middle East, but also in Eastern Europe and even among our allies in NATO.
Carter's lesson is that there is no turning our back on the global community. We must prove that we have progressed ourselves since Cardinal Richelieu, prime minister of France during the 17th century, proclaimed that states have no principles, only interests.
Carter's presidency was not perfect. But he had no pretensions — political or personal — of perfection. It is hard these days to imagine a public figure admitting an error in judgment; in the world of spin, there are no mistakes.
He successfully negotiated the Panama Canal treaties and the second Strategic Arms Limitation agreement. He created the federal departments of Energy and Education. He reformed the civil service system and didn't politicize the flaming out of the "guns and butter" Vietnam War economy that allowed his successor an extraordinary financial reserve while he politically assumed the consequences of inflation.
He appointed more minorities and women to senior government positions and judgeships than all of his predecessors combined.
Second-term executives — presidents and governors and mayors alike — usually take more risks in their second term because they are no longer concerned about re-election. Jimmy Carter acted like a second-term president from his first day in office. It cost him the presidency, but he gained something whose cost cannot be measured.
I have had the enormous privilege to know and work with some extraordinary public officials. At the federal level, I always try to visualize who of them might have 200-odd years ago debated and voted for our Declaration and Constitution in the great halls of Philadelphia.
The no-nonsense, straight talk of Harry Truman and Barry Goldwater qualifies, as does the brilliance of Elliot Richardson and Barbara Jordan; so does the capacity for leadership of George Shultz, Dan Inouye and Bill Fulbright. But I also imagine the honorable gentleman, the patriot from Plains, Ga., Jimmy Carter, rising on a point of profound concern.
I never questioned the decision to endorse Jimmy because I believed in his heart, I believed in his spirit, and I believed in his conscience. I still do.
Jimmy Carter transcended politics. And as with all true leaders, he inspired others to try to do the same.
University of Hawai'i President Evan Dobelle was U.S. chief of protocol, with the rank of ambassador, under President Jimmy Carter, and was national finance chairman of the 1980 campaign of Carter and Vice President Walter Mondale.
