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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Wednesday, January 30, 2002

Dueling claims to clean campaign

By Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser City Hall Writer

Hawai'i Democratic Party chairwoman Lorraine Akiba yesterday offered to make a formal pledge for clean election campaigns and challenged her political rivals to do the same, but the executive director of Hawai'i's Republicans said they already run clean campaigns.

"We will and have been running clean and factual campaigns. We only report the facts," said state GOP executive director Micah Kane.

Akiba criticized Hawai'i Republicans for incidents in the recent City Council special election, won by Ann Kobayashi on Saturday.

Akiba accused Kane of saying, in TV and radio news reports, that Kobayashi was being supported by "crooks." Kane said he didn't do that. "It's unfortunate that they misinterpreted my statement because it was directed specifically to Andy Mirikitani and only Andy Mirikitani," he said.

The special election was to choose someone to serve the final year of the term originally held by Mirikitani, convicted on federal felony charges of public corruption.

In a related move, state AFL-CIO president Harold Dias coordinated picketing at noon yesterday in front of the Hawai'i Republican Party offices on Kapi'olani Boulevard, protesting the "crooks" comment because he believed it was directed at the labor unions who supported Kobayashi.

Akiba also referred to a mailer from Republican candidate Sam Aiona that violated state rules that prohibit absentee-voter applications from being attached to campaign literature. Aiona has said it was an inadvertent mistake, since he sent a similar, legal mailer in 2000 before the rules were changed.