It's Hirono vs. Lingle
By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Capitol Bureau Chief
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| Mazie Hirono thanks her supporters after the early returns showed the lieutenant governor leading in the Democratic primary.
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser |
The campaign attracted little interest from voters, with turnout among the lowest in state history, far behind the record primary election turnouts in governor's races in 1994 and 1998. The winner of the Democratic primary will face Republican Linda Lingle on Nov. 5.
Hirono's margin over Case was closer than polls had projected and Hirono described her effort as a "hard fought" contest. Businessman and former legislator D.G. "Andy" Anderson came in third.
Case remained optimistic through the early returns and told supporters to be ready to stay up late waiting for the last of the votes to be counted. "I don't know what the final result will be, but we're still in it," he told a crowd of about 100 people at Ward Centre.
To voters across the state, Case said, “you’ve sent a message to this whole state and that message is going to be heard for years and years to come.”
Just after midnight, Case emerged and prepared to go to Hirono’s headquarters to congratulate her on winning the race. He said he waited because the vote was so close. “We’re just trying to be sure,” Case said. “Too many people across this whole state worked way too hard to come this close. But I will tell you this it would have to be a pretty big turnaround fo us to win now.”
Case joked that he knew Hirono was watching as he spoke on live television. “If on the way from here to your office, things change, then I want you to turn around and walk back with me.”
He said it was too early to think about the future. He and his wife shook hands and hugged everyone who stayed until the end of the evening. “My life has been public service, I still have a lot to give.”Hirono predicted victory and said Democrats would pull together to defeat Lingle in November.
"We're going to pull together, and the Democrats are going to campaign together, campaign hard, campaign to win," Hirono told a gathering of her campaign volunteers at the Blaisdell Center. "We have a grassroots effort that's always come together, and that's what's going to happen."
In fact, the Democratic primary campaign was a remarkably polite affair, with few harsh exchanges between the candidates until nearly the last week of the race.
With the rich and well-organized Lingle campaign waiting to take on the primary winner, prominent Democrats such as U.S. Sen. Dan Inouye publicly urged the Democrats to fight fair so that the party would be able to patch up its differences and support the Democratic nominee in the general election.
The winning Democrat's running mate will be state Sen. Matt Matsunaga, a lawyer who soared to a decisive victory in the lieutenant governor's race over two well-known Democrats, Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustee Clayton Hee and Board of Education member Donna Ikeda.
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| Republican Linda Lingle greets a throng of supporters at her Ala Moana Boulevard campaign headquarters. Lingle easily won her primary contest.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser |
With virtually no money, Carroll's campaign was crushed by the polished, multimillion-dollar Lingle campaign effort.
Lingle said the pace of her campaign will accelerate from here, with fund-raisers, debates and forums around the state.
"We need to restore trust and integrity to government. We need to improve our public schools and expand the economy," said Lingle, a former Maui mayor who lost the race for governor by 5,000 votes in 1998. "No one from the other side can do that because they've been part of it for so long."
Former Circuit Court Judge James "Duke" Aiona led the race to become Lingle's lieutenant governor running mate, holding a reasonably comfortable lead over former newspaper and broadcast journalist Dalton Tanonaka.
Even if Hirono is victorious, it is hardly a ringing endorsement of her campaign, since she received less than half of the votes cast in the Democratic primary.
Critics have complained Hirono was short on specifics about what she would do as governor, choosing instead to campaign on her image as a leader who can build consensus and move the state forward.
But Hirono's advance was remarkable considering she actually withdrew from the governor's race for six months to make an abortive bid for Honolulu mayor and didn't re-enter the campaign for governor until May, when Mayor Jeremy Harris announced he was bowing out of the race for governor.
Hirono's in-and-out waffling cost her almost six months of campaign time at the outset of the most important election year of her career, but she managed to rebound and raise more money than either of her challengers.
After eight years as lieutenant governor, she benefited from higher name recognition than Case and enjoyed more support among members of the traditional Democratic base.
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| Ed Case and his wife, Audrey, were ready to wait for the last votes to be counted as returns showed a close race between him and Hirono.
Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser |
To others, it suggests the Democrats' overdependence on union support, which was generally acceptable a generation ago, but now appears unseemly to many. The unions today are often seen as little more than one more political special-interest group, one that wields too much clout at the Capitol.
Of the three major Democrats, Hirono was seen as the candidate most closely aligned with the "status quo," and a major question in this primary was whether her own Democratic loyalists would punish her for it.
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| Andy Anderson acknowledged his supporters as he entered his campaign headquarters last night. He conceded the governor's race last night, but added win or lose, he intended to bring issues to the fore.
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser |
He conceded the race at about 8:20 p.m. to a crowd of about 50 somber supporters at his campaign headquarters on University Avenue.
"I chose to see if I could make a difference," he said. "I am disappointed tonight, but that's OK, I have my children and family. I'd rather have tried and failed than not tried at all. This is my last campaign. I probably shouldn't have been involved in this one."
The fact that both Hirono and Matsunaga are Japanese Americans runs counter to conventional wisdom that political tickets in Hawai'i should be ethnically diverse to appeal to the widest range of voters possible.
Hee said he worried about what that might mean for the Democrats in the general election.
"If it's a Hirono-Matsunaga ticket at the end of the day, the Democrats are going to have to pull together because the ticket will be a narrow ticket," said Hee, a former legislator. "It's going to be a real tough task in the general election, regardless. But I thought a broader ticket would lend itself better to the public."
Advertiser reporters Dan Nakaso and James Gonser contributed to this report.
