Polls Run Hot and Cool

United States

Tensions . . . and yawns ... as US islanders vote.

By David S North

THREE of the hottest election contests under the United States flag took place this month in the Pacific ... as well, it must be said, as a couple of the dullest.

Tnere were tight races for seats in the US House of Representatives in American Samoa, Guam and in Hon olulu, plus a collection of other races in those places. Here is how they shaped up at time of going to press.

Sitting Congresswoman Patricia F.

Saiki, a lonesome Republician in heavily Democratic Hawaii, faced a

tough fight against former East-West

Center executive Mary Bitterman, the Democratic candidate. A haole Caucasian Ms Bitterman had run the Centre’s communications program for years, and had served as a mem ber of the State Cabinet. Ms Saiki, a Japanese American and the first ever Republican to serve as a voting mem ber of the US House from Hawaii, had defeated a Democrat of Samoan ancestry two years ago in a close battle for an open seat.

The other races in Hawaii were dull. Senator Spark Matsunaga, a 72year-old Japanese-American Demo crat, took the primary earlier in the year by 87 per cent and won six years earlier with 82 per cent of the vote.

His nominal opponent, a Republican rancher from Molikai, is 70-year-old Maria Hustace.

Congressman Dan Akaka, a Demo crat whose district includes Honolulu’s suburbs and the outer islands, did not even have a Republican opponent. His third party foe is the libertarian candi date, Lloyd Malian. Malian is known to the Hawaii press for two reasons: no newspaper has a photo of him in its files, and he claims that he is a writer living underground in Puna while he investigates the hippy com munity on the Big Island.

There were state legislative elections as well, but the Democratic strangle hold was not threatened. The princip al Republican problem was to prevent the handful of sitting Republicans bolting to the Democrats: Virginia Isbell, a member of the lower house, made the switch this spring and the Republicans could not find anyone to run against her on the conservative west side of the Big Island.

Hawaii’s Democratic Governor, John Waihee, the first native Hawaiian to hold the post, is not up for a re election this year.

In Guam a surprisingly tough race

faced incumbent Congressman Ben Blaz, a Republican and former Marine Corps general. Somewhat formal in his approach, Blaz ran against the more casual but feisty Ben Pangelinan, onetime aide to former Democratic Governor Ricardo Bordallo and more recently a health administrator.

Blaz has now served in the House for two terms, and had an easy win two years ago.

Pangelinan gave Blaz a rough time for allegedly missing 20 of 21 impor tant votes in Congressional committee meetings. (The island delegates can vote in committee and in party cau cuses, but not on the floor of the

House of Representatives). Pangelinan

mounted a vigorous campaign, includ

ing biting political cartoons, and bene

fited from an endorsement from the dean of the Pacific delegation, Hawaii Democrat Senator Daniel Inouye who, by the way, has said he will be a candidate for tne powerful and soon to-be-vacant position of Democratic leader of the US Senate.

Bordallo, despite his troubles in the courts (see PIM , October), appeared to be making a comeback and ms allies may gain control of the Guam Senate, the one legislative body on the island; the Democrats had 12 seats to the Re publican’s eight as the election opened. The two ranking senate candidates in the September Democra tic primary were Bordallo’s wife Madeline and his former Lieutenant Governor, Eddie Reyes. Both were ex pected to be elected easily. The sitting Guam Governor, Republican Joe Ada, has two more years to his term.

The race for the 21-member Senate was considerably enlivened when the taxpaid phone bills of the members

were printed by the Pacific Daily

News . These showed that Republican leader of the Senate, Marilyn Manibu san (see PIM September 1986) had run up more than $12,000 in phone calls, mostly in Blaz’s office in Washington. The Senator with the next most expensive bill was the Speaker, Democrat Frank Gutierrez, who had a $ 10,000-plus bill.

The Governorship of American Samoa was very much on the line as incumbent Democrat Governor A P Lutali and former Governor Peter Tali Coleman fought it out for a four year term. Both houses of the Fono, the island legislature, were also up for grabs but in American Samoa un like Guam and Hawaii party labels

are not used in legislative races. The greatest suspense in the Pacific races were over who would succeed Fofo Sunia as the island’s Congressman in Washington. Seeking the seat were Lieutenant Governor Eni Hunkin, Coleman’s former Lieutenant Gov ernor Tufele Li’a and Territorial Pub lic Defender Soli Augmoeualago (who twice lost to Sunia) as well as several lesser candidates. Given the size of the field, and the fact that American Samoa (unusually for US elections) re quires an absolute majority in this con test, the chances were that the two ranking candidates would go into a second election, called a ‘runoff, in late November.

As for the presidential race, neither George Bush (shot down in the Pacific during World War II) nor Michael Dukakis, paid much attention to the area: Hawaii was regarded as one of the few states likely to vote Democra tic, and both Guam and American Samoa are excluded from presidential elections. □