Posted on: Monday, November 18, 2002
COUNTERPOINT
Ben, we're gonna miss ya
By Robert M. Rees
Moderator of 'Olelo Television's "Counterpoint" and Hawai'i Public Radio's "Talk of the Islands"
Like many politicians who reach the end of their careers up to their necks in criticism, Gov. Ben Cayetano has become a scapegoat for whatever ails us.
However, just as Harry Truman rose from the ashes of vilification to a lofty historical rating, so too will Cayetano. He is of a rare species: an honest politician who saw it as more important to lead public opinion than to measure it and who chose being right over being loved.
Cayetano, to his regret, has never been well liked. When political consultant Joe Napolitan looked at Cayetano's early polls before the 1994 race for governor, he commented, "It looks grim. The people don't like you."
Sometimes Cayetano added to the image of a comedic bull in a china shop. In one of his early State of the State addresses, getting the popular aphorism of the day precisely wrong, he intoned, "The slogan 'Think Local, Act Global' has special meaning for us."
If anything thrived during Cayetano's administration, it was his low popularity. Indicating why our Founding Fathers distrusted too much democracy, a poll in May of this year indicated that Mayor Jeremy Harris, after years of shenanigans, enjoyed an excellent/good rating of nearly double Cayetano's.
As Sen. Daniel Inouye explains it, "We always wanted an independent governor. Now that we have one, we don't like it."
We in Hawai'i, perhaps suffering from political myopia, still haven't noticed the real Cayetano — a compassionate and extremely bright liberal who believes that principles come first. He is the antithesis of Bill Clinton.
The real Cayetano, upon learning about the difficulties of an autistic child neglected by the state, met with her parents in his office and then spent an afternoon at her home to see what he could do.
The real Cayetano nominated outstanding judges like Dan Foley even though he knew this would incur the wrath of legislators and the religious right because of Foley's previous representations on the side of same-sex marriage.
The real Cayetano has no fear of the establishment. When the new Convention Center tried to get by with a perfunctory environmental impact statement, Cayetano sent it back to the drawing board even though an infuriated tourist industry took this to be obstructionism.
It was the real Cayetano who endured and settled a teacher's strike for half the amount originally demanded. He did so in order to begin to replace a seniority system with one based on merit. The Democratic Legislature quietly applauded his stance even while publicly attacking it.
Throughout his administration, Cayetano continued his program of capital investment in schools. Cayetano also pushed through more autonomy for the university and a new medical school and bioresearch center in Kaka'ako. Arguably, he has done more than any other governor for education.
The real Cayetano even tried to instill principle into a decayed political party. He made it clear there would be none of the usual deal-making.
He vetoed the age-of-consent bill even though Democratic leaders like House Vice Speaker Sylvia Luke literally urged him to abandon principle for the sake of votes.
This year, he vetoed the sham offered up by the Democrats as campaign reform because the legislators had exempted themselves from the proposed law.
He also fought for a Death With Dignity Bill even though party activist Richard Port and party chair Lorraine Akiba were actually lobbying against it on the grounds that it would be a hot potato for Democrats during the elections.
Says Cayetano of all this, "When LBJ signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, he supposedly said, 'I think we just lost the South.' Everybody in politics today understands the political price of making significant change, but not everyone is willing to pay the price."
The governor has reminded us that you can fly like an eagle even when you're surrounded by turkeys. Ben, we're gonna miss ya.
