Tsutsui-Hee showdown anticipated

As the incumbent, Lt. Gov. Shan Tsutsui finds himself in the position of campaigning for a job he never sought in the first place.

Tsutsui ascended to the job following the appointment of his predecessor, Brian Schatz, to the U.S. Senate to replace the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, who died in December 2012.

Today he is seeking election to that office and is in his first statewide campaign against a field of four others that includes an experienced politician with high name recognition but some negative baggage, and a former television newswoman seeking the state’s No. 2 office while not asking for a single campaign contribution.

Both state Sen. Clayton Hee and Mary Zanakis acknowledge a tough fight to try to unseat Tsutsui and be the partner on the Democratic gubernatorial ticket in November. Once elected in the primary, the nominees campaign as a single team for their party.

Other Democrats in the primary include Sam Puletasi and Miles Shiratori. On the Republican side, Elwin P. Ahu and Warner Kimo Sutton are vying for the nomination, while Les Chang is the sole candidate for the new Hawaii Independent Party and will be running in November with former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann. Cynthia "Lahi" Marlin is the lone Libertarian in her party’s primary.

Most eyes are on the Democratic race, where Hawaii Pacific University communications professor John Hart is among those who expect it to come down to Tsutsui and Hee.

"I think it will be name recognition and your positives versus your negatives," Hart said. "Shan doesn’t have trouble with negatives; he has trouble with name recognition. Clayton doesn’t have trouble with name recognition; he has trouble with negatives."

Prior to being lieutenant governor, Tsutsui, 42, served the Waihee-Wailuku-Kahului district on Maui for 10 years, earning the vote of his peers in 2010 to become Senate president.

While having had only two years on the job as lieutenant governor, Tsutsui said he is hopeful voters judge him on his entire record as a legislator.

"I think if you ask folks that I’ve represented for 10 years back on Maui, I think generally they’ve been satisfied with the work I’ve done," Tsutsui said. "I’ve obviously been able to work hard on their behalf and be a good legislator for those constituents there."

He said he expects to spend between $750,000 and $2 million to get his name and message to voters who might not know him outside of Maui.

"Hopefully I have enough time before now and the primary to get that message out and provide voters with a viable option," he said.

Hee has been a familiar name in Hawaii politics since first being elected to the Legislature in the 1980s before moving on to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs as a trustee during the 1990s. He left OHA in 2002 to pursue an unsuccessful run at lieutenant governor.

Since returning to the Senate in 2004, Hee (D, Heeia-Laie-Waialua) has not shied away from controversial issues, including civil unions, same-gender marriage, minimum wage and, this year, an investigation into assaults by mental patients against staff members at the Hawaii State Hospital.

As chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary and Labor Committee, Hee also is in the position of confirming judicial appointments, sometimes clashing with testifiers and nominees themselves. A former GOP lawmaker once called him a "bully."

Hee acknowledged having made mistakes in the past.

"Controversial issues tend to be polarizing, and it’s part of handling them," he said. "In the past I’ve made some mistakes in judgment in how to handle the issues, but as time has gone by I’ve tried to be better about it.

"That’s part of, in my opinion, part of experience … and also part of getting older and maturing."

Despite what some, including HPU’s Hart, consider to be negative baggage, Hee said he hopes voters judge him on his record, which includes writing laws against dog fighting, banning the possession of shark fins and prohibiting police from having sex with prostitutes.

"I learned a good lesson (in 2002), and that is, to win an election you have to earn the people’s confidence, and that requires getting your message out, having a record that you can run on and having an organization to get the message out," Hee said.

The wild card in the Democratic race is Zanakis, 56, who worked as a news reporter for 22 years with KITV and KHON. She won damages from KHON in 2003 after a federal jury ruled the station had wrongly given her a new assignment and eventually fired her after she returned to work from maternity leave.

"She could be (a factor)," Hart said. "How much money will she raise, and whose votes is she going to take from?"

Zanakis said she does not intend to raise campaign funds, saying she was "hoping/praying" that voters would remember her from her time on air.

"During that time, hopefully, I was in their homes on a daily basis," she said. "I hope that they liked the work that I did and they could see that I was fair and objective."

She understands her challenge and strategy will be tough work.

"I am not asking for any money, but I think people like that about me," she said. "I’m just going to go for it. For me I have nothing to lose.

"I have time and I have the commitment and I have the energy. And I am owing to no one."