Former Gov. Linda Lingle said today that she, like most people in Hawaii, was proud of Hawaii-born President Barack Obama but that the president has not done enough to improve the economy.

Asked by U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono, her Democratic opponent for U.S. Senate, why she believes former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney would be a better president for Hawaii than Obama, the Republican Lingle said Romney has the proper experience to get the economy back on track.

“It’s true that President Obama inherited a very difficult economy and a very difficult situation. And he’s tried, and I’m sure he’s done his best to make things better. But it just hasn’t worked,” Lingle said in a one-hour debate sponsored by KITV and the online news site Civil Beat. “We have more people today unemployed. We have more women living in poverty today. We have more people on food stamps.”

Hirono questioned Lingle’s bipartisan theme given that Lingle campaigned on the mainland for the Republican ticket of U.S. Sen. John McCain and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin against Obama in 2008 and supports Romney this year.