After the 2006 general election, the Hawaii Republicans are now more poorly represented in the State Legislature than before Gov. Linda Lingle squandered more than $6 million in campaign money on her own re-election.
Notwithstanding being flush with money, Lingle and the Hawaii GOP “leadership” wasted the opportunity of a lifetime to increase Republican ranks in the State Legislature, given the Democrats record of 50 years of failure dominating those two chambers combined with the last 4 years of shameless opposition to reform of any kind. Instead of trying to capitalize on these dynamics, or utilize the vast resources available to Hawaii Republicans, Lingle and party leaders utterly failed to make the case for increasing the number of Republican state senators and representatives. Worse than that, Republicans didn’t even break even in 2006 . . .Republicans actually lost seats.
Don’t blame the war in Iraq or Bush’s unpopularity for the Hawaii GOP’s woes, otherwise Lingle couldn’t have received a whopping 62% of the vote. Campaign advertising by Randall Iwase, the Democrat Party and labor unions desperately tried but failed to drag down Lingle with Bush and Iraq. To be sure, the 2006 campaign disaster for Hawaii’s Republican has everything to do with the absence of any decent campaigning by the GOP whatsoever . . . and that’s just the way Lingle wanted it. History reveals clearly that a series of incompetent and self-interested politicians from Pat Saiki to Andy Anderson to Frank Fasi to Jane Tatibouet to Linda Lingle have consitently and resolutely, together with their incestuous stable of minions and hacks, run the Hawaii GOP into the ground.
On election night, according to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Lingle downplayed the GOP's minority status in the Hawaii State Legislature.
"It is not going to be that big a difference," Lingle told reporters at her victory celebration. "We will continue to work as we have in a bipartisan fashion." Clearly, this is someone who cares more about her own political fate than that of the dozens of Republicans on the ballot in 2006. Worse, she has such contempt for Republican values that she can’t recognize the difference between the potential of a Republican majority in the State Legislature and continued Democrat dominance.
While you can blame GOP candidates for losing their respective House and Senate races, a reasonable and fair assessment must require asking whether Lingle, party leaders, and party staffers REALLY operated over the past year or two like they were trying to increase Republican numbers at the Legislature with vigorous marketing, organizing and get-out-the-vote efforts, or if GOP substantial resources were prioritized instead for Lingle’s easy re-election and eventual U.S. Senate run. Did the Hawaii GOP under Lingle and her supporters in key party positions do their job to make the party’s message attractive while working to make the Democrat record seem dismal and appalling? Were Hawaii voters in 2006 REALLY given reasons to vote Republican? Were Democrats that dominate the State Legislature being hammered in commercial after commercial run by the GOP or Lingle, making it possible for Republican challengers (not to mention Republican incumbents) to successfully make the case for their candidacies?
Clearly, the answer to these questions is a resounding "no." That’s why it’s no surprise that the typical percentage of votes cast for Republican challengers in State House and Senate races was around 20%. With this in mind, if the goal really was to try and increase the numbers of elected Republicans, then this miserable percentage is the most important gauge of success or failure on the part of Lingle and the Hawaii GOP in 2006. 20% is a failing grade because all you have to do is put your name on the ballot in Hawaii as a Republican and you’ll get 20% without even trying. By all accounts, this failure to deliver higher typical vote percentages for Republicans occurred not because voters in Hawaii were unwilling to vote Republican but because they just weren’t effectively asked to do so.
But nothing has changed in 25 years or more. The same people are controlling the Hawaii GOP now as then. For things to change, the Hawaii GOP has to stop being an obstacle to Republican victory and has to stop being a useful tool for ambitious, self-centered politicians like Saiki, Anderson, Fasi, and Lingle. It needs to spend 12 months per year doing nothing but making a winning case for Republicans and making an irrefutable case against the status quo.
Why is this important? Well, if you want reform in Hawaii’s politics and governance, then a weak GOP -- which is kept weak through mismanagement, exploitation and possible malfeasance -- will keep reform from ever happening in Hawaii. As a result, all the well-intentioned essays, well-articulated arguments, and prescriptions for improvement will remain wholly irrelevant, purely academic, and completely out of reach. And all the Republican candidates on the ballot in 2008 will be on a tragic path to certain defeat. Let’s hope for a revolution at the Hawaii GOP.
Eric Ryan, a Republican and resident of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, can be reached via email at mailto:eric@studioryan.net
