Lingle for Hawaii

[Ogre Mage]

Not really sure why she's bothering. I mean, kudos to her for providing something arguably more substantial than token opposition, but there's still no realistic chance of her winning. If I was Lingle I'd just go into lobbying or whatever it is ex-politicians do with their time.

Perhaps they offered her something behind closed doors in exchange for running.  Or maybe she is just being a good soldier and taking one for the team.  I would agree that Lingle has a snowball in Hawaii chance of winning.

For the GOP this is a positive development, even though a loss is a virtual certainty.  As a former governor, Lingle will be able to fundraise fine on her own.  And symbolically, the Hawaii GOP is not embarrassing itself by putting up a non-entity U.S. Senate candidate.  Which is more than the WA GOP can say, lol.

[Ogre Mage]

I think the best news out of this is that Hawaii Republicans have a chance of gaining some seats back in the state legislature with her at the top of the ticket. If a no name was the nominee, Democrats would have an excellent chance of controlling 100% of the State Senate seats (The Republican caucus is at a rump of 1 senator now). That's not good for democracy.

Agree. But Lingle's victory itself doesn't looks too likely to me. If only anainst Ed Case, who is hated by many Democrats...

Perhaps he will ruin another election for Democrats there. Although I don't think he has the guts to run as a write-in if he loses the primary.

Impossible, because Hawaii has a ban on write-in voting.  This was challenged in federal court.  In 1992, the Supreme Court upheld Hawaii's law 6-3.  Lingle will only be facing a single Democratic opponent in 2012 which is one of several reasons why I am 99% sure she will be defeated.

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19920608&slug=1496138

That said, the Democratic candidate (hopefully Hirono) cannot afford to run a sleepwalk campaign against the former governor of the state.  But I think Hawaii Dems recognize that and will respond appropriately.

[Ogre Mage]

Let's say hypothetically Obama's margin goes down a little bit from 08 because of the economy to a high 60 win in Hawaii. Would Lingle even be able to win enough cross-over supporters to win?

No.  Let's say Obama wins the state 68-32.  That would mean Lingle would need to run 18-19 points better than the GOP Presidential candidate.  Given the more partisan nature of a Senate race and the fact Lingle left office with approvals in the low 40s, that seems virtually impossible.  It's only been 1.5 years since her governorship ended and I don't think that is enough time for negative perceptions to have eased.  After Hanabusa unseated Djou in a GOP wave year when Obama wasn't even on the ticket, there is nothing to suggest such a monumental upset is brewing.  Maybe if the Dems nominate an extremely weak candidate, but I can't see that happening either.

Also to say that Baumgartner is "a million times" better than Rossi is a huge stretch, but I don't want to derail the subject of this thread.

[Ogre Mage]

My predictions:

D: Hirono 58%
R: Lingle  40%

D: Case 50%
R: Lingle 48%

I think both will lead Lingle by 10-15%.

This is kinda off topic, but perhaps the more important question than Lingle's candidacy is -- who will win the Democratic Primary?  I hope Hirono wins.  She has the advantage of being a sitting Congresscritter and Inouye, Akaka and the rest of the Establishment in Hawaii is lining up behind her.  I think she is favored, but I suspect Case still has a solid shot.

[Ogre Mage]

Inouye runs the party and he's not alone in being extremely pissed about Case's Akaka challenge 5 years ago.

Just looked it up, how did Case get 45% against Akaka

I have relatives in Hawaii and heard that by 2006, Akaka was starting to get rather doddering in his old age.  The buzz around that fact continued at a somewhat low level until Case broke the whole thing open by declaring against Akaka and making insinuations that Akaka was past his prime.  Some folks agreed, but the Democratic establishment was furious.  I did not watch the campaign closely, but from what I heard Akaka at times looked muddled and confused, playing into Case's attacks.  

[Ogre Mage]

I've already seen two instances of the MSM spooging themselves over Linda Lingle, falsely claiming her to be popular when she's not anymore. This is going to be a long campaign season.

The mainland MSM is frequently clueless when it comes to Hawaii politics, though whether they are truly clueless or disingenuously trying to create a story in this case is unknown.

I also wanted to add a bit of a disclaimer on my post about Akaka.  While there were suggestions in 2006 that he was getting senile, I personally don't know if this was the case.  I don't live in the state and don't feel in a good position to make that assessment.  Case tried to capitalize politically on those rumors and earned a lot of ill will as a result.

Obama being at the top of the ticket is a massive problem for Lingle, but her own record is almost as big of a problem.  She oversaw the utter boondoggle known as the Superferry, her handling of the state's budget cuts infuriated the powerful unions and left the public particularly dissatisfied over cuts to education and her close association with and campaigning for Sarah Palin angered many.  I think those items are the primary reasons for the large drop-off in her job approval during her second term. 

On a personal level, I lost all respect for Lingle after she vetoed Hawaii's civil unions bill.