A Campaign That’s Here Too Soon
Don’t look now, but Hawaii’s election year 2012 has begun, a full year and half before general election day.
Oh, I know, I know. If you’re like me, you are still shaking from election year 2010: The special 1st District congressional election; the Democrats’ hotly contested gubernatorial primary; the multi-candidate races for the remaining two years of Mufi Hannemann’s second term as mayor and Peter Carlisle’s fourth term as city prosecutor; and the spirited general election races for 1st District Congress and governor.
Then there was the endlessly repetitive, omnipresent political advertising that smothered us from that February day Neil Abercrombie announced he was resigning his congressional seat until the November general election.
Like it or not, steel yourself – because it’s back.
First came the polls. As noted here last week, Daily Kos, the liberal/progressive blog, released one in March that showed – surprise – practically any Democrat beating Republican Linda Lingle in the 2012 race for the Senate seat currently held by Dan Akaka.
According to Daily Kos, they beat her handily. Former U.S. Rep. Ed Case swamps Lingle by a 52-35 margin. Current U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono beats her 52-40. The even currenter U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa puts her away 51-40. And former Mayor Mufi Hannemann dispatches Lingle 47-40.
That was enough for Case. Last week he announced his candidacy for the United States Senate. Overnight, it seemed, another poll leaked (or was leaked) to the press, this one by SMS, a respected local polling firm (for whom it was taken, nobody knows). Case,
Hannemann, Hanabusa and John Waihee were all pitted against Lingle, and the first three beat her by almost identical margins, 50-35 or so. Waihee tied her, 39-39.
So what does it all mean? Virtually nothing. A horse-race poll 18 months prior to the election is a black-and-white snapshot of a decision Hawaii’s voters will make in color come Nov. 5, 2012. Color will come from grassroots organizations, endorsements, smart (and not so smart) advertising, unforeseen national and local events, and that most important element: money.
Should she decide to run, Lingle will certainly have money, as much or more than any of the Democrats interested in the race. She demonstrated her capacity to raise oodles of it in her 2006 re-election contest, and the bankrollers of the national Republican Party are as interested in picking up a seat in Hawaii’s congressional delegation in 2012 as they were in 2010 when they contributed staggering amounts to Charles Djou’s campaigns.
Lingle’s current low numbers can be attributed, I think, not so much to her Hawaii brand of Republican politics, but to her national party and the two-plus years of public mugging its congressional and media supporters have visited on Hawaii’s favorite son Barack Obama.
No, there’s not a Hawaii senatorial aspirant in sight who should take heart from spring 2011 poll numbers. But all the rest of us should take warning, hunker down and prepare for another year of campaign fatigue.
Correction: Two weeks ago in this space, I wrote that the possible government shutdown would result in “no postal service, no Medicare, no Social Security, no air traffic control . . .” In fact, all of those government functions would continue without interruption. Good liberal that I am, I must have been hyperventilating at the prospect of less government. My apologies.
