Former Gov. Linda Lingle on Thursday depicted U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono as ineffective in Congress and unprepared for a role in the U.S. Senate, while Hirono said Lingle is campaigning as bipartisan but would vote with national Republicans who do not share Hawaii’s values.
In the first of five debates before the November election, Lingle said Hirono lacked accomplishments, and repeatedly suggested the Democrat does not understand critical federal tax and spending issues. Lingle, a Republican who served two terms as governor, said Hawaii would have an advantage from a balanced congressional delegation and described herself as a potential "leader in the United States Senate, not a follower."
Hirono warned that if Lingle helped Republicans take the Senate, U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, would lose his chairmanship of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. She said Republicans would repeal the federal health care reform law, extend federal tax breaks for the wealthy, dismantle Wall Street oversight and eventually move to privatize Social Security and Medicare.
The debate showed the tightrope Lingle has to walk in traditionally Democratic Hawaii. She sliced at Hirono but was careful to blame both political parties for the gridlock in Washington, D.C., so as not to offend the independents and moderate Democrats who will likely be voting to re-elect Hawaii-born President Barack Obama.
Hirono took every opportunity to attach Lingle to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the GOP’s presidential and vice presidential nominees.
"The Ryan budget really fast-tracks changes to Social Security, and again, in the Republican world, that means that they are going to move toward privatizing Social Security, just as they are moving to privatize Medicare," Hirono said at the forum hosted by the Japanese Chamber of Commerce at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii.
Lingle cracked that people will be really surprised when they vote in November and do not see Ryan’s name on the ballot against Hirono, "because you’d think that’s who she’s running against. She needs to focus on us here at home and what’s going to happen to the people of Hawaii in the coming years."
The only real flash of irritation between the candidates was when Lingle sought to correct Hirono after the congresswoman twice said Lingle is a co-chairwoman of the Romney-Ryan ticket. The Romney campaign has named Lingle as one of five honorary co-chairmen of the Jewish Americans for Romney Coalition.
Hirono was most comfortable when speaking about core Democratic values that will likely resonate with many Hawaii voters. She said she would vote to let the President George W. Bush-era tax cuts on the wealthy expire and end tax breaks for oil companies. She said she would support a constitutional amendment that makes clear that "corporations are not people," a response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission which allowed unlimited independent political spending by corporations and labor unions.
Hirono said a Republican Senate would give the wealthy even greater tax breaks. "I’m just calling for tax fairness," she said. "The 98 percent of middle-class people in our country that bore the burden of these Bush tax cuts — unpaid for, added a trillion dollars to our debt — that’s not fair. I’m for tax fairness.
"It is about time the tax cuts for the richest people in our country expire as they were supposed to."
Lingle suggested that Hirono’s "tax the rich" approach was simplistic and would not meaningfully reduce a $16 trillion federal debt. She called for broad tax reform that would include lowering the corporate tax rate and closing tax loopholes.
On an issue that Hirono will likely seize on during the campaign, Lingle said she supports Ryan’s proposal to provide premium-support payments so seniors on Medicare could consider private insurance as an option to the government plan. Obama and many Democrats have said that Ryan’s proposal is similar to a voucher program that would not keep up with rising health care costs.
Lingle said "having a more competitive environment where seniors can actually go out and buy their insurance, the same way that Congresswoman Hirono and 8 million federal employees — that’s what they have, they have a premium-support program — I don’t know why she doesn’t want our seniors to have a program that’s as good as the one that she has in Congress."
Hirono countered that "it’s very clear that my opponent has the talking points from the Republican Party."
