Last Tuesday (11/2/10) was Election Day!
Hawaii really went in a different direction than the rest of the USA!
On the continental US, there was so much anger at Obama & his fellow Democrats over the on-going recession, health reform, cap & trade, and other issues, that the Republicans gained major momentum. They gained more than enough seats to control the US House of Representatives! They did gain some seats in the US Senate, but not enough to gain majority status. The Republicans also added more governors and state legislatures as well!
However, in Hawaii, the opposite happened! The Democrats gained stronger control of the state! The imbalance between the 2 parties has gotten even greater!
1) Governor's seat
For most of Hawaii's history under statehood, Democrats controlled the governor's seat. Then 8 years ago, Linda Lingle became the 1st Republican governor in 4 decades! Then in 2006, Lingle got overwhelming re-elected!
But now, the Democrats got the governor's seat again! Former Congressman Neil Abercrombie defeated Duke Aiona, who was Lingle's Lt. Governor!
While the election was predicted to be a close election, I was predicting Abercrombie might win, due to the backlash against Lingle over Furlough Fridays.
While the Board of Education, Department of Education and the Hawaii State Teachers Assocation (HSTA) also agreed to last school year's Furlough Fridays, Lingle was the most visible person in all this! And while Lingle was no longer up for re-election, I sensed the voters would take it out on Duke Aiona!
I was right about Aiona's chance of losing, but I was surprised by Abercrombie's margin of victory!
It wasn't just Abercrombie beating Aiona by 58% - 42%.
What really surprised me was how the State House districts voted!
http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/20101104_Abercrombie_wins_all_but_1_district.html
As that title said, Abercrombie only lost 1 State House district. That district (District 40 - Kapolei, Makakilo and Royal Kunia) just happens to be the one where Aiona lives.
Aiona couldn't even win District #32, which was where his running mate, Lynn Finnegan, represented in the State House. That district has Pearl Harbor, Hickam and the surrounding areas. It has plenty of military housing and Republicans have usually gotten support there.
But the districts that surprised me the most were Districts 17,18 and 19. Those are in East Honolulu, which is where the Republicans have the strongest support in Hawaii. That is a wealthy district, which I consider Hawaii's version of Orange County! Everytime I go there, I saw more signs supporting Republican candidates, way more often than I do in other parts of the island.
But yeah, that's how widespread the frustration over Furlough Fridays were, that even people in the most conservative districts were willing to take it out on Aiona! So much so that people were willing to overlook Abercrombie's evasiveness on issues like government spending, taxation, and legalizing marijuana.
2) US Congress
For the US Senate, only Dan Inouye was up for re-election. He has seniority in the US Senate, which allows him to bring more federal dollars to Hawaii. Because of this, Inouye usually wins re-election easily!
For US House District #2 (rural Oahu, Neighbor Islands) Mazie Hirono easily defeated lesser known competitors.
But the Congressional race that really got people's attention was US House District #1 (urban Honolulu). That was Abercrombie's district.
Because Abercrombie left that seat early to run for governor, there was a free-for-all special election back on May! The Democrats were divided between the more left-liberal Coleen Hanabusa and the moderate Ed Case. The Republicans were united around Charles Djou.
I wrote about that special election at http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html#4502698201819331140
But since then, the Democrats has united around Coleen Hanabusa.
This election was predicted to be close.
I predicted Djou to win that one! He didn't have the burden of Furlough Fridays to drag him down. While he was a strong believer in the Republican message on cutting taxes and government spending, he was more moderate than most national Republicans on immigration, gays in the military, and other religious/moral issues. He did mention that he didn't favor abortion, but preferred that government not ban it either. I thought all of that was good enough to help Djou win the election.
However, Hanabusa defeated Djou this time! It was a closer election than Abercrombie vs Aiona.
Djou also won more State House districts than Aiona did, as you could see on this map!
http://media.staradvertiser.com/images/20101104_loc_hanabusachart.jpg
Djou was able to win East Honolulu which he represented on the Honolulu City Council. It was also the areas which I mentioned earlier that I was surprised to see Aiona lose.
Djou was also able to win in Ewa and Mililani, which tend to be "swing districts" that are usually up for grabs between Democrats and Republicans.
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What really irritated me about Colleen Hanabusa was her "you can't always say no" slogan, which was taunting Djou for his various votes in his City Council days when he voted against some of the Mayor's and City Council's ideas.
It's this attitude of "you gotta fit in, no matter what, even if it means compromising your principles". This shows that Hanabusa is more of a follower than a leader.
It's easy for Hanabusa to taunt Djou with "you can't always say no" since she was in the majority in the state Senate! It's easy for a Democrat to go along with everyone else, since they're the majority in the state legislature.
In Congress, which Hanabusa is about to join, THINGS ARE NOT LIKE THAT!
Hanabusa thinks she can easily work with the other people in the US House of Representatives! Hanabusa is about to get a reality check. Now's she will be in the minority party!
She thinks she can convince the Republicans to see her point of view. She's about to get a rude awakening.
Most of those Republicans are WAY MORE right-wing than Djou! Many of them come from conservative states like Idaho, Utah, Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi, etc. Many of those Republicans are under MAJOR PRESSURE from their voters to AVOID collaborating with Democrats like Hanabusa! That's how it is in most of the continental US this year.
Guess what will happen when Republicans in the US House pass a bill.
Hanabusa would be voting no! What comes around goes around!
3) Negative ads
People kept saying "negative ads don't work in Hawaii"!
THAT IS A LIE!
I remember back in 1998, Ben Cayetano and his supporters used a lot of negative advertising to stop Lingle's 1st attempt at being governor!
There were ads from Cayetano saying "the people are not stupid" in response to the things Lingle was saying. There were ads in which disgruntled Maui residents expressed their unhappiness about when Lingle was Mayor of Maui County. Inouye was even saying stuff like "I'm supporting Cayetano because he knows what it's like to raise a family" which was a veiled attack on Lingle being childless.
Ironically, Inouye is now saying negative ads are bad for Hawaii, which is #1 - hypocritical, #2 - relied on people forgetting his 1998 ad, #3 yeah, he didn't use negative ads this time, since he was up against lesser-known candidates this year. I really believe that had Inouye faced better known, better financed competitors, Inouye would've used negative ads!
Also, negative ads against Djou worked. Those were ads that attacked Djou's voting record in his short time in Congress, and taunted him for "voting 90% with Republicans" and saying "that's not independent". Hanabusa also taunted Djou with "you can't say no all the time"
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Those who say stuff like "negative ads don't work in Hawaii" like to portray this myth about Hawaii as a place where bullying, yelling, prejudice, and crime doesn't exist! Which we all know it's Bull-Stuff! Hawaii isn't that different from anywhere else! Yes, the aloha spirit thrives here, but let's not BS ourselves and pretend that we all get along!
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What is truly annoying are these "positive ads" that shows the candidate, his family, and say stuff like "my parents taught me values" and shows the candidate with his/her parents, spouse, children, etc.
It's just "vote for me because I got a nice looking family".
Those ads say NOTHING about what the candidate will do while in office. They say NOTHING about what unique policies that candidate will pursue. Those ads mention NOTHING about specific plans to solve our major problems.
Imagine if all we had were such pathetic "positive ads". Candidates won't have to worry about having flaws about their policy plans being exposed! Now, THAT is WAY MORE DANGEROUS than "negative advertising".
At least with negative advertising, you can expose what kind of harm that can come with your opponent's plans. If done right, you could actually save the state some heartache by making sure the people know the consequences of your opponent's policies.
4) Soon, I'll be talking about national races in this recent election! Stay tuned!
