VOLCANIC ASH
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By David Shapiro
After the beating Hawai'i Republicans took in this year's election, Gov. Linda Lingle wasn't interested in analyzing the returns.
"I like to look forward and not back," she said, sounding like University of Hawai'i football coach June Jones telling his Warriors to clear their minds of the 69-3 "butt-kicking" they took from Boise State.
Well, maybe Jones should have had his players ponder the reasons for the blowout and study the film. They might have learned something that would have spared them another slaughter at Fresno State.
The same goes for Lingle. Instead of foolishly arguing that voters didn't send "any major message" this election, she'd be wise to closely examine why Republicans failed so badly under her leadership.
If the governor doesn't learn from her mistakes, the next fanny-thumping the GOP takes may be her own when she faces re-election in 2006.
The Nov. 2 blowout loss for Lingle and the Republicans left the Democrats with new confidence that they can reclaim the governor's office they held for 40 years until Lingle's victory in 2002.
Lingle made an intense personal effort to deliver Hawai'i to President Bush, only to see Democrat John Kerry run away with the state by 37,507 votes.
All five of her candidates for the Board of Education were trounced, as voters turned deaf ears to Lingle's war cry for local school boards.
The governor campaigned door-to-door with GOP legislative candidates, aiming to gain Republican control of the House of Representatives for the first time since statehood. Instead, Republicans lost five more seats to Democrats and now hold fewer than when Lingle took over the party in 1998.
Lingle won't be easy prey for the Democrats, who still haven't found a candidate to oppose her in 2006. The governor enjoys high personal approval ratings, and Hawai'i voters seldom turn incumbents out of our top offices.
But Democrats proved convincingly Nov. 2 that Hawai'i is still their state. If their candidate for governor inspires the energy, enthusiasm and unity the party brought to the presidential and legislative races this year, anything can happen.
Lingle won in 2002 with a disciplined campaign focused on education, the economy and honesty in government.
Republicans lost this year because she failed to lay down any compelling agenda for them to run on.
She was more visible in the presidential contest than in local races, and voters here weren't buying the political fable she was spinning on the Mainland about the economic miracle she and George W. Bush had wrought in Hawai'i.
Lingle now faces the challenge of regaining control of the political agenda from a Democratic Legislature that paid no price with voters for ignoring her policy proposals on education, the budget, taxes and drug enforcement.
You can't argue with House Majority Leader Scott Saiki that any voter mandate now lies with the Democrats, who won't make it easy for Lingle to build a record of achievement to run on for re-election.
Lingle was elected in 2002 because many Democrats thought their own party needed to be taught a lesson.
Democrats were going to prison for corruption, fighting each other and standing paralyzed as Hawai'i's economy stagnated and our schools crumbled.
Lingle beat Mazie Hirono with 197,009 votes, nearly 2,000 fewer than she received in her 1998 loss to Gov. Ben Cayetano, partly owing her victory to some 25,000 Cayetano voters who stayed home rather than turn out for Hirono.
Those disenchanted Democrats came back in a big way this year to give Kerry 231,691 votes and support their party's legislative candidates.
Lingle's future may well depend on whether they stick around for 2006.
David Shapiro, a veteran Hawai'i journalist, can be reached by e-mail at dave@volcanicash.net.
