Posted on: Wednesday, June 30, 2004

VOLCANIC ASH
Where are our political leaders?

By David Shapiro

Don Hewitt, the retiring 82-year-old producer of "60 Minutes" who has seen it all, worries that the U.S. political system has left us bereft of great leaders in perilous times.

"The biggest question of these times is, where are the Ben Franklins and Thomas Jeffersons of our era?" Hewitt says.

"How fortuitous that when Hitler and Stalin were threatening the world, there was a Roosevelt and a Churchill to stand up to them. And I don't see that now in either party."

Hewitt blames the insidious influence of money in politics after the Nixon-Kennedy debates he produced in 1960 made political campaigning a television sport.

"Since then, nobody has been able to run for office without the money to buy TV time," Hewitt says. "You can't get money unless you do business with lobbyists you shouldn't be in business with. ... It's called bribery."

Hewitt's concerns ring true in Hawai'i as well as nationally.

There are only two active politicians in Hawai'i of any real stature — Republican Gov. Linda Lingle and Democratic U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye — with little sign of anybody coming up behind them who can fill the same-sized shoes.

No viable Democratic candidates have yet stepped forward to challenge Lingle's re-election in 2006.

Nobody of nearly Inouye's stature is ready to take his place.

Lingle is the Republican Party. No other big hitters have emerged from her shadow in the six years she's controlled the Hawai'i GOP.

Down the line, in places we expect future leadership to come from, the landscape appears barren.

If John A. Burns was a great governor, it was partly because he had a strong Legislature to work with, lawmakers in both parties of stature and commitment who knew how to work together for the common good.

Today, our Legislature is so partisan, so deep in the pockets of special interests and so lacking in real-world experience that it would be difficult for any governor to be great.

Few individual lawmakers from either party stand out as future leaders ready to move up.

Other than Lingle, who was mayor of Maui for eight years, we've never had a county mayor graduate to governor or U.S. senator in Hawai'i, and county councils suffer the same problems as the Legislature — weak leadership, inexperience and pervasive pandering to vested interests.

The root problem here is the same as Hewitt cites on the national level: Hawai'i elections are ruled by special-interest money that props up compliant incumbents with enormous bankrolls that scare off worthy challengers.

The system produces elected officials who are willing to make concessions to private interests who supply them money — and once elected, take good care of their benefactors at the expense of the public interest.

These candidates see politics as a career option, not a calling. They're masters of straddling issues and using their campaign money to make good impressions on voters in superficial contacts.

The talents needed to raise money and get elected have little to do with the attributes needed to make and execute sound public policy — vision, independent integrity, teamwork, proven accomplishment.

The trap is that the system can only be changed by the incumbents it protects, and they won't vote against self-interest.

If we want to improve local government and start breeding true leaders to guide our future, Hawai'i voters must make it their No. 1 concern to level the political playing field to let qualified challengers into the game.

If lawmakers continue to stand in the way, perhaps the only option for voters is to "just say no" to all incumbents at the ballot box until they get the message.

David Shapiro, a veteran Hawai'i journalist, can be reached by e-mail at dave@volcanicash.net.

Correction: A previous version of this column incorrectly said no county mayor in Hawai'i has ever gone on to be governor or U.S. senator.