Posted on: Friday, November 8, 2002

Dobelle, Lingle try to move on

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By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

University of Hawai'i President Evan Dobelle was on the phone with unpleasant news for Linda Lingle.

She should be prepared that night, Dobelle told Lingle, for a television commercial that featured him endorsing her opponent, Mazie Hirono.

"He told me it was very complicated," Lingle told The Advertiser yesterday. "I said, 'Actually, Evan, it was very simple.' And I just hung up.

"He succumbed to political pressure, and he just shouldn't have done it."

Dobelle's endorsement for the losing Democratic candidate got relations between the big-thinking governor-elect and the big-thinking UH president off to a rocky start.

To borrow a line from Lingle's campaign, it was a new beginning for Lingle and Dobelle, two of the highest-profile people in the Islands.

Up to that point, Lingle had publicly praised Dobelle as a man of vision who shared the same goal of making UH a world-class institution.

Yesterday, Lingle told The Advertiser, "I don't think we're going to be going to dinner anytime soon."

Dobelle's office issued a statement that read in part, "I am not interested in reviewing the past or discussing my private conversations with the governor-elect. Partisanship is over. Tackling the work for which I am responsible to the citizens of Hawai'i is the task I relish."

Lingle's victory makes her Hawai'i's first Republican governor in 40 years.

Dobelle is a longtime Democratic loyalist who was treasurer of the Democratic National Party, U.S. chief of protocol for the White House under President Carter and assistant secretary of state with the rank of ambassador. His wife, Kit, also was a U.S. chief of protocol under Carter and chief of staff for first lady Rosalynn Carter.

In the first press conference since winning Tuesday's election, Lingle said someone from Dobelle's office had offered her tickets to Sunday's Wahine volleyball match.

Lingle said, "I understand we haven't gotten back to him."

But the governor-elect said she would never hold a grudge against Dobelle or anyone else supporting a political opponent.

"He did something, in my opinion, highly inappropriate, unnecessary," she said. "But that's over. It's got nothing to do with our my relationship to the University of Hawai'i. It's got nothing to do with my relationship with him. ... But our goal is the same. Our goal is to have a top-rate university that we can be proud of."

Reach Dan Nakaso at 525-8085 or dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.