Posted on: Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Hawai'i Republicans won fundraising race

By Dennis Camire
Gannett News Service

WASHINGTON — The Hawai'i Republican Party raised more money than the state Democratic Party in the 2004 election cycle, by more than a two-to-one margin, according to a new report by a Washington watchdog group.

The Republicans received $2.25 million in contributions, a 40 percent increase from the 2002 cycle, when Republican Gov. Linda Lingle was elected, according to figures compiled by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit research organization that tracks money in politics.

At the same time, the Democratic Party of Hawai'i saw almost the opposite happen. Its contributions dropped 31 percent to about $1 million for the 2004 election compared with $1.5 million for the 2002 election, which included the gubernatorial contest.

"Since Linda Lingle has been governor, we have had an easier time — certainly not easy — raising money," said Sam Aiona, chairman of the Hawai'i Republican Party. "When you have a governor that people have confidence in, they are willing to back her party, and the finances show that."

Brickwood Galuteria, chairman of the Democratic Party of Hawai'i, said his party's contributions dropped off in 2004 because even though a presidential election was taking place, it wasn't a gubernatorial election year.

"That's probably why a lot of people didn't play on the Democratic side," he said. "And a lot of stuff didn't come through the state party but (came) from the Democratic National Committee straight into the media here in Hawai'i."

But while most state political parties had less money to spend than in previous years, the combined total for the Hawai'i parties was a little more than in previous years at almost $3.3 million, according to the report.

Nationally, state party organizations spent $735 million in 2004, down about $85 million from the 2002 midterm elections.

"The fact that the governor who got elected was a Republican just made it a lot more possible to raise money," said Neil Milner, a political analyst at the University of Hawai'i. "In the Democrats' case, part of it is that people have started giving money to the Republicans, but also I think it does reflect a kind of low morale that the party has suffered even before the last governor's race."

Although down, the level of spending nationally foiled forecasts that the new campaign finance laws would bankrupt some state parties.

"There were a lot of doom-and-gloom predictions," said CPI researcher Agustin Armendariz. "That is in fact not what we saw."

CPI researchers attributed the drop-off to 2002 changes in the campaign finance law that restricted the ability of national parties to raise large "soft money" donations that often were passed on to state parties.

In Hawai'i, the changes seemed to hurt Democrats more than Republicans.

National Republican groups continued to pump close to the same amount — about $200,000 — into the state party for both elections.

The state Democratic Party received nothing from national Democratic organizations for the 2004 election compared with the $126,000 for the 2002 elections.

Galuteria said the national Democratic groups did not send money to Hawai'i in 2004 because it was considered a safe state for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. That changed during the last few weeks of the campaign when the state appeared to be in play.

"Thousands and thousands of dollars came crashing in but not for the state parties," Galuteria said. "Both sides bought every possible inch of ground in the media in one week. It was an amazing thing to watch."

Along those lines, Republican and Democratic state parties in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio spent a combined $168 million in 2004 — nearly a quarter of the spending in all 50 states.

Gannett News Service staff member Chuck Raasch contributed to this report.