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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, June 2, 2002

VOLCANIC ASH
Democrats must take high road

By David Shapiro

With Jeremy Harris abruptly out of the governor's race on the eve of his party's state convention, Hawai'i Democrats should resist a turn to shabby guerrilla tactics as their only chance to defeat Republican Linda Lingle.

The Honolulu mayor's departure, along with the inelegant return of Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono a few months after she quit the race to run for mayor, were the latest Democratic missteps that are beginning to resemble terminal bungling.

Whoever wins the party's nomination — Hirono, D.G "Andy" Anderson, Ed Case or a candidate yet to join the battle — will face voters less amused than ever by the circus going on under that big tent Democrats boast about.

Right now, Lingle owns the core issues in the 2002 election: the economy, education and government reform. It's not even a matter of party philosophy anymore, but a more basic concern about honesty and competence.

Democrats are in big trouble on these points, and they know it.

Their elected leaders have bickered endlessly among themselves while doing little to fix a sick economy and a school system that shames our community. They've run up government costs that our tax base can't support. They've ineptly managed state functions from prisons to special education to mental healthcare to traffic cameras to the turf at Aloha Stadium.

And Democrats have been rocked by so many ethics scandals that they can't even claim credit for honest effort. Four elected Democrats have been sent to prison for corruption in recent years, with Rene Mansho likely to join them soon.

They've given Lingle the easiest question a candidate ever had to ask: If Democrats are capable of doing the job, why haven't they?

Harris once seemed the Democrat who could best match Lingle's strengths. He's been a popular mayor with a powerful political base and a reputation as a good administrator full of fresh ideas.

His ugly flame-out leaves the party leaderless and tempted by the guerrilla tactics. If they can't compete with Lingle on the core issues, why not try to make it a campaign of peripheral issues where they see her as more vulnerable?

Starting this weekend, Democrats will portray Lingle as an enemy of the worker. They'll attack her on abortion and other planks of the Bush administration's ultra-conservative social agenda. They'll paint her as a lackey of business and big oil and try to stain her with the Bush/Enron scandal. They'll condemn her as a threat to the environment.

And they'll question Lingle's "local values" — the old race card.

This has succeeded before in beating back Republican challenges, but many Democrats fear it won't work this year when voters are so worried about Hawai'i's future that they're not easily distracted from the gut issues Lingle is raising.

Smart Democrats know their only real chance to win in 2002 is to produce a strong leader who can unite them behind high-minded goals on the central issues and convince voters that their party is finally ready to change.

David Shapiro's Volcanic Ash column appears in the Opinion section each Wednesday. He can be reached by e-mail at dave@volcanicash.net.