Lingle’s Senate bid gets the (Republican) party started

Any year with two former Hawaii governors running for new offices has to be a good year, so there is a lot of excitement as we head toward the elections.

For the past month, former Gov. Ben Cayetano’s campaign for Honolulu mayor has provided most of the electoral excitement, but former GOP Gov. Linda Lingle’s campaign for the U.S. Senate is going to heat up quickly.

Voters won’t decide who will replace Sen. Daniel K. Akaka until the Nov. 6 general election, but Lingle’s position in the race will make it important both here in Hawaii and across the nation.

Earlier last month, Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said control of the Senate is too close to call.

"The Senate calculus is now this: If all members not up for re-election return to the Senate next January, and all the seats where we favor one party go that way in November, the Senate is 47-46 Democratic, with seven toss-ups," Sabato predicted.

Last week, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was very high on Lingle’s campaign as he broke down the Senate races in a Washington, D.C., newspaper report.

Handicapping the race for Roll Call, McConnell said the GOP could take control of the Senate this year, although many of the races are still tight.

"I’m not going to make a prediction other than this: I think the Senate is going to be close, one way or the other.

"It’s going to be an eye-gouging, shin-kicking contest all the way to the finish line," he told the paper.

The GOP, McConnell said, had particular success in recruiting Lingle into the race because it transforms a near lock for the dominant Democratic Party into a suddenly competitive contest.

Although Lingle is viewed as a recruiting victory, she had been toying with a Senate campaign as far back as March 2010, when she was telling reporters that "it’s possible" she would run for elected office in the future.

Later, in something that sounded as if the GOP had confused politics with the NBA draft, Lingle was called a "top recruit prospect."

Last weekend, Lingle starred as the bogeyman (woman?) of the state Democratic convention, when candidates former U.S. Rep. Ed Case and current U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono warned that Lingle’s election would be disastrous for Hawaii and the national Democratic Party.

And top Democratic U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye thundered that voters should reject Lingle’s calls for bipartisanship.

Lingle argues on her website that "Republicans may gain a majority of the U.S. Senate, meaning Senator Inouye will lose his chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee.

"It is in Hawaii’s best interest to have a ‘foot in both camps,’ so that no matter which party is in control, Hawaii’s interests will be effectively advocated for in Washington, D.C.

"For decades, Senator Inouye and the late Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska looked out for each other’s interests when one party or another was in the majority," Lingle said, implying that she would be Inouye’s GOP vote.

Inouye tried to tamp down that sort of thinking by paraphrasing the old "You are no Jack Kennedy" quote issued by the late U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, by telling Democrats, "She is not any Ted Stevens."

What if by Election Day, Hawaii voters see that Florida, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada and Virginia are going Republican and the Senate is already in GOP hands — could there be a last-minute move by Hawaii voters to put Lingle in the Senate?

Probably a bit far-fetched, but if you see Democrats begging voters to vote early and absentee, you will know why.

———

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.