Unemployment was at 2.9% in August, and September tourism was up 9.6% from last year. Inouye's weak scare tactics are laughable. People are optimistic.
Posted on 10/30/2004 12:39:08 AM PDT by k2blader
Cheney eyes Democrat-friendly Hawaii
Associated Press
Eau Claire, Wisc. — Making a major detour on the campaign trail, Vice-President Dick Cheney will rally voters Sunday night in Hawaii, a state only two Republicans have won in a presidential race.
The Bush-Cheney campaign says Hawaii is within reach and that every electoral vote is worth fighting for — in Hawaii's case, four electoral votes.
“The polls look so good in Hawaii that we are going to drop in,” Mr. Cheney told hundreds of cheering Republican volunteers Friday morning in Wisconsin. The vice president said he and wife, Lynn, have campaigned in 48 states over the past year “and yesterday we booked the 49th.”
The Bush campaign is highlighting Hawaii in a move that forces Democratic challenger John Kerry to spend money there. A campaign can use second-tier states like Hawaii to cover its bets in case it miscalculated elsewhere. For example, Al Gore miscalculated in West Virginia four years ago when Mr. Bush became only the fourth GOP candidate to win the state since 1932.
“We are competitive in the state; this is a very close race,” said Cheney spokeswoman Anne Womack.
Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle, the state's first Republican governor in four decades, said that Mr. Cheney's appearance is a response to polls showing the candidates neck and neck, a remarkable turn of events in a state that Mr. Gore won by 18 percentage points in 2000.
With the lowest unemployment rate in the nation, Hawaii has none of the economic problems that many states on the mainland have. The islands are in the midst of a construction boom and tourism is soaring.
Ten thousand Hawaii-based U.S. troops are at war in Afghanistan and Iraq, making the military vote in a time of war a strong potential force for an incumbent Republican.
As well, Hawaii politics are in a state of flux. Ms. Lingle cashed in on widespread voter discontent with an entrenched Democratic power structure. The state Legislature is still Democratic, although Ms. Lingle has been campaigning hard to change that, and Republicans may at least pick up enough House seats to keep Democrats from overriding her vetoes.
Hawaii also has a trend in elections that makes Democrats uneasy: a lot of cross-party voting in presidential races.
But there are also factors in Mr. Kerry's favour.
Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye cites anger over the deployment of a disproportionate number of National Guard troops from Hawaii, the state's highest-in-the-nation gasoline prices and Mr. Bush's support for gun legislation.
During the campaign no major national political figure has set foot in the state, almost 8,000 kilometres from Washington.
Now as Election Day approaches, Mr. Gore is coming to Hawaii to appear with Mr. Kerry's daughter Alexandra on Friday for a get-out-the-vote rally.
Ms. Lingle, who was aboard Air Force One with Mr. Bush and Republican Senator John McCain, an Arizonan, the day after the final presidential debate, said she had requested that someone from the national campaign come to Hawaii but did not specifically ask for the vice president.
To Northwestern University political science professor Benjamin Page, Mr. Cheney's trip to Hawaii “seems like an odd use of his time.”
Not at all, says Ms. Womack, his spokeswoman. With an itinerary that is already packed, Mr. Cheney will simply forego sleep in a hotel for a full overnight of flying to and from a state that Democrats no longer take for granted.
Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon are the only GOP presidential candidates ever to win Hawaii's vote.
Unemployment was at 2.9% in August, and September tourism was up 9.6% from last year. Inouye's weak scare tactics are laughable. People are optimistic.
1. Both campaigns think Hawaii is close.
2. Both campaigns think the Electoral College is close.
If either of those things were false, you would not see both campaigns going to this much trouble over Hawaii.
Yeah, but big-name Democrats are going to Arkansas. I hope that doesn't mean Bush is slipping there.
What's different in Hawaii is that both campaigns have responded to the tight public polls. That suggests to me that they both agree the state could go either way, and that its electoral votes are enough that they could make the difference.
No doubt!
But I still think the election isn't as close as the polls are showing. Guess we'll see on Tuesday night. :-)
The beauty of this is that Hawaii will know much of the results in the eastern half of the US before their polls close.
The beauty of this is that Hawaii will know much of the results in the eastern half of the US before their polls close.
I plan to vote around 5pm HST, which will be around 11pm EST.
Oops, I just remembered the daylight savings time thingy. 5pm HST = 10pm EST!
I heard a few days ago that Arkansas is closer than expected. I'll have to trust that Rove knows what he is doing, but I don't want to see a repeat of 2000 (if I recall correctly) where California looked close and we wasted time there. I hope Hawaii isn't the same thing.
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