Posted on: Sunday, September 12, 2004

JERRY BURRIS

By Jerry Burris
Advertiser Editorial Editor

Just in case you weren't paying attention, Saturday will be an important date on your calendar.

It's primary election day, when we begin the process of sorting out who will lead our state, make our laws and set policies for all.

Actually, in a substantial number of cases, the decision will be made in the primary. No waiting for the general election.

Those cases include the contest for Honolulu city prosecutor, Honolulu City Council and mayor and all county races on the Big Island (if someone receives more than half the vote) and others.

So this is a high-stakes election.

For most voters, the key contest is for mayor of Honolulu. After two full terms plus a partial term serving out the remainder of former Mayor Frank Fasi's last term, Jeremy Harris will step down.

While 10 people are running for the job, the focus has been on the two front-runners, Mufi Hannemann and Duke Bainum, and on Fasi, hoping for a comeback.

It is the first certain opportunity for a change in philosophy and direction at City Hall in more than a decade. If that's not good enough to stimulate you to get out and vote, what is?

For voters, these final days are a particular test. They will be deluged with information and propaganda from campaigns that recognize there is no tomorrow after Saturday.

Unfortunately, this level of intensity means decisions sometimes get based on emotion or anger rather than logic. Campaigners too often succumb to the temptation of a knock-out blow, the one statement, advertisement, mailer or speech that will kill off the opposition.

So voters will be faced with the task of sorting out what truly makes sense in these last days of campaigning and what is little more than red-hot rhetoric. It's not an easy job.

Be particularly careful of last-minute advertisements or direct mail that raises new issues or new questions about a candidate. Best advice: Throw out the mail, ignore the advertisement, take the rhetoric with a big grain of salt.

If a candidate truly had something important to say about his or her opponent, why wait until the final days to make it public? The answer, obviously, is the hope that the charge can be laid without sufficient time to answer it.

At this newspaper we will cut off all campaign-related letters to the editor as of Wednesday. We don't want to get into the position where something is said in a letter without sufficient time for the other side to respond.

So read up on the candidates (The Advertiser's Voter's Guide, which was included in your Thursday paper, is an excellent source), check out the Web sites of the candidates and get informed.

Remember, for all the money the candidates spend, for all the noise they make, it is you, the voter, who gets to make the final decision.

Don't let that opportunity go to waste.

Jerry Burris is editor of The Advertiser's editorial pages.