Posted on: Sunday, November 14, 2004
ISLAND VOICES
Hawai'i politics eroding in five dangerous ways
By Robert M. Rees
Hawai'i's run-up to the general election of Nov. 2, complete with last-minute visits by Vice President Dick Cheney and former Vice President Al Gore, was of more than just passing interest.
Some of the events on the campaign trail may have been ominous indicators of the shape of democracy to come.
What emerged through all the dust-ups on the trail is that we've substituted the half-truths of public relations for ideas, and replaced thought with ideological cheerleading and triangulation.
We live during a time when almost every politician professes admiration for President Harry S Truman, but when only a few seek to emulate his plain speaking and simple courage. The best and boldest political ideas no longer come from bona-fide contenders or incumbents but from candidates who have abandoned all hope.
Of the 40 live political debates we produced and moderated on 'Olelo Community Television between Sept. 7 and Nov. 1, one of the most enthralling was amongst three sure losers — nonpartisan Jim Brewer, Republican Cam Cavasso and Libertarian Jeff Mallan — who had no chance of winning the U.S. Senate seat now held in perpetuity by Daniel Inouye.
On the other hand, Hawai'i's longest and most expensive political race this year, for mayor of Honolulu, was distressing in its banality. One question to ask yourself about the mayoral contest is this: Can you think of one new idea, or for that matter of any idea or concept, that emanated from the campaign?
Duke Bainum chose for his symbol the broom and the promise of a clean sweep, a metaphor more associated with parodies and Broadway musical comedies than with meaningful political discourse.
For his part, Mufi Hannemann chose to ostracize Bainum as an outsider from the Mainland by using the otherwise meaningless theme, "Our Home, Our Mayor!"
Overall, the mayoral campaigns laid bare five dangerous erosions into our body politic: Politicians who lie for a living, assault politics, the run-and-hide syndrome, ideological cheerleading and triangulation.
Lying for a living
When Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey hired the firm of Doyle Dane Bernbach to develop his advertising against Richard Nixon in 1968, Humphrey said to a group of us assigned to the campaign, "So what are you Madison Avenue guys going to say about me?"
Bill Bernbach, who thought of himself as the antithesis of Madison Avenue, admonished Humphrey, "That's not the question, Mr. Vice President. The question is: Why should you be president?"
That question has by now become all but irrelevant to political life.
Since then, our democracy has been marked by a cynical and reckless manipulation of the truth.
State Sen. Fred Hemmings, a Republican, was in tune with the times when he commented on Democratic attack ads of this year by offering a convenient distinction without a moral difference: "This is not spin; it is lying ... "
Out on the campaign trail, truth manipulation flourished. Tracy Okubo, after declining to debate her opponent Brian Schatz face to-face on 'Olelo, spread the hearsay that Schatz lived outside the district by filing and publicizing her complaint to the Ethics Commission.
The city clerk's office stepped in to certify that Schatz lives where he says he lives but Okubo still said, "I wish they would look into it more in-depth."
The Democratic Party, on behalf of some of its candidates, used direct mail to falsely attack the attendance records of some Republican incumbents. Immediately following the election, Windward state Sen. Bob Hogue attributed the losses of some of his Republican colleagues over in the House to this effort.
Assault politics
Closely related to the tendency of our politicians to lie for a living is the attack style of politics. Typical of this approach was the letter to the editor written by Gov. Linda Lingle's senior adviser for communications, Lenny Klompus, concerning the Sierra Club's concern about flawed implementation of the new bottle bill. In one short epistle, Klompus managed to work in five epithets before concluding with a veiled threat to the Sierra Club's executive director, Jeff Mikulina, "He should stop burning bridges ... "
Also of note was Mike Gabbard's expensive 12-page tabloid sent via direct mail, "Gabbard Versus Case: Clear Choice in Congressional Race." This compendium arrived only a week before the election following months of Gabbard's finding excuses not to debate his opponent face to face.
As for Case, he began his campaign with an innuendo-laden "open letter" delivered via the Internet to Gabbard. The letter asked presumably embarrassing questions about Gabbard's past under the guise of innocently asking for information.
Perhaps the most bizarre incident of assault politics came from the Hawaii Reporter, an Internet site published by Malia Zimmerman in support of the Libertarian view. The Zimmerman assault resuscitated old allegations — never charged and never proven — from a family meltdown that Duke Bainum's wife, before she met Bainum, had been involved in lucrative wrongdoing in her capacity as a caretaker for an elderly man.
When asked about the story that appeared three weeks before the election, Zimmerman actually maintained that its publication had no connection whatsoever to the mayoral race.
Concurrently, Zimmerman's political companion, Sen. Sam Slom, was promoting Hannemann with ads and radio commercials on behalf of an ad-hoc group called "Republicans for Real Change."
We saw plenty of assault politics during the 'Olelo debates. Former Democratic state Sen. Melody Aduja tried to dispose of primary opponent Clayton Hee by accusing him of keeping horses that generate manure that goes into our drainage system. State Rep. David Pendleton, during his debate with Democratic challenger Pono Chong, waited until the last 40 seconds, during the moderator's closing remarks, to suddenly butt in to ask Chong if he was going do anything about the Democratic Party's use of defamatory direct mail.
(As it turned out, Chong didn't do anything. Democratic Party direct mail that falsely impugned voting records with misleading statistics was sent into Pendleton's District.)
The run-and-hide syndrome
During the campaign, President Bush frequently described John Kerry by borrowing the line of heavyweight champion Joe Louis, when Louis was about to fight Billy Conn in 1946. When reporters asked Louis about the remarkable speed of his opponent, he responded with the epithet applied by Bush to Kerry with equal prescience, "He can run but he can't hide."
In Hawai'i, the situation is different. You can run and hide. Many of our candidates do so. Indicative of the best and worst with regard to the run-and-hide syndrome were Peter Carlisle and Keith Kaneshiro in their race for city prosecutor. Carlisle readily accepted invitations to debate and commented, "It's part of the responsibility of being a candidate."
Kaneshiro, on the other hand, wouldn't respond to numerous invitations to debate. This didn't stop him from later explaining his two-to-one landslide loss to Carlisle by opining that local news media had failed to disseminate his views.
In 2002, when we first did live political debates on 'Olelo, it was the Democratic Party that advised some of its newer and inexperienced candidates to run and hide by ducking debates in favor of party-supplied direct mail. This year, it was the Republican Party that counseled its newer candidates against debating. In all, 11 Republican candidates declined our invitation to participate in a televised debate that offered one hour of free time.
Some confessed they "had been advised not to debate."
One of the Republicans who led the charge for others not to accept an hour of free time on community television, even though he himself took advantage of it, was House Republican minority leader Galen Fox. Yet, when almost all of these 11 lost, Fox said to The Honolulu Advertiser, "I'm disappointed. We had some good candidates, and we were hopeful that would take us over."
Fox and Republican Party chairman Brennon Morioka called 'Olelo suggesting this writer be replaced as moderator because of liberal views. That's fine, but in waging that campaign, Fox used official state trappings and facilities and even added the topic to an agenda for a meeting with the Republican Party caucus at the Capitol.
In the race to represent House District 51, candidates from both parties ducked. Tommy Waters, running for re-election, chose instead to use expensive and frequent direct mail. One of those pieces, "Isn't it time we ended partisan bickering?," answered its own question by bickering, "My opponent Wilson Ho doesn't think so."
Wilson Ho also declined to debate and relied instead on direct mail paid for by the Republican Party. One piece used in support of Ho depicted a gloved and ominous hand reaching through a smashed window to open a locked door. The headline: "Tommy Waters wants you to meet your new neighbor." Two weeks later, Ho followed up with a depiction of a criminal being photographed for his mug shot. Instead of a slate with his own name, the culprit is holding a sign that says, "Tommy Waters has my vote."
Ideological Cheerleading
The tendency to finagle the facts into the shape of an already held ideology is probably most associated with Marxism-Leninism and what British writer Richard Crossman called "the God that failed," the Communist Party. Today, however, the tendency to substitute blind belief for analysis and thought is a phenomenon that characterizes the Republican Party.
Ideological cheerleading and orthodoxy allow contented true believers to trivialize pragmatic concern for the needs of others. One reason the slate of five candidates for Board of Education supported by Lingle (all of whom lost) promoted charter schools is that doctrinaire conservatives seek to privatize what they see as the "intrusion" of a government monopoly into education.
These same Lingle candidates tended to promote as their central point one over which the BOE has no authority, passing a constitutional amendment to decentralize the school boards.
Strangulation by triangulation
If ideological cheerleading is characteristic of the Republicans, then strangulation by triangulation is what distinguishes the Democrats. The Democrats have become so busy measuring public opinion that they've forgotten how to lead it.
After all, the use of polls as a substitute for leadership came into full bloom under President Bill Clinton and his consultant Dick Morris. By the end of the Clinton administration, Clinton was looking at polls to see where he ought to vacation and Vice President Gore consulted focus groups to see what earth tones he should favor in his clothing.
Absurdly, "Let the people decide" now resonates as a reasonable approach to interpreting a Bill of Rights designed to protect minorities from the whims of the majority. During the 'Olelo debates, a group of Democrats turned away at the altar of debate by their Republican opponents later appeared as a group.
Even the most progressive and liberal among them seemed hesitant to endorse civil liberties. Afterward, two or three commented that their hands were tied because "House leadership" is concerned about any nonstandard deviations from the political norm.
The future lies ahead
Comedian and political commentator Mort Sahl used to conclude his nightclub act of the 1950s with, "If there's anyone here I haven't offended, I apologize." Today, it's almost impossible to talk or write accurately about politics and politicians without offending the practitioners.
Some argue that the new norm of politics, one downgraded by the five distinguishing characteristics of campaigning today — politicians who lie for a living, assault politics, the run-and-hide syndrome, ideological cheerleading and triangulation — is at least helping to increase voter turnout. Perhaps, but that, too, is ominous.
When Hollywood studio chief Harry Cohn died, a huge crowd turned out for the funeral of one of Hollywood's most despised individuals. An aide to Cohn was asked for an explanation and responded, "It just goes to show that people will turn out when you give them what they want."
Robert M. Rees is moderator of 'Olelo Community Television's "Counterpoint" and Hawaii Public Radio's "Talk of the Islands."
