Volcanic Ash

I used to think Hawai‘i’s general election season was a bit too short — about six weeks from the primary election on the second to last Saturday of September to the general on the first Tuesday of November.

But this year’s campaign seems too long — way too long — even when you chop off a couple of weeks of having to pay attention by voting absentee.

In the 1st Congressional District race, Charles Djou and Colleen Hanabusa have been going at it since Neil Abercrombie announced he was stepping down way back in December, and with nothing new to say, they’re just saying it nastier.

In the governor’s race, the candidates have been sounding like Rain Man impersonators lately.

Everything Abercrombie says, James “Duke” Aiona accuses him of bringing Washington-style politics to Hawai‘i. Everything Aiona says, Abercrombie accuses him of not getting it done during the eight years of the Lingle-Aiona administration.

The absentee voting is part of the problem; candidates have to time their campaigns to peak when the first ballots are mailed, and they seem at a loss on what to do after that in a game of diminishing returns with fewer votes still up for grabs every day.

If this yearʻs campaign seemed long, wait until 2012, when Hawai‘i’s primary will be moved up to the second Saturday in August, making the general election campaign six weeks longer,  to comply with federal rules on mailing military and other overseas ballots.

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If you’re tired of the real thing, AARP is pitching  its votersʻ guide with a funny spoof on negative campaigning at jackphillipsforamerica.com.

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Or for reading that is less light, my column in todayʻs Star-Advertiser, “Government needs to pay up to fix hot-water system now.”

The A line that stuck with me in an AP analysis of the governor’s race described the 72-year-old Democratic candidate, Neil Abercrombie, as “one of the last remaining major Hawaii politicians who was an adult when statehood was achieved in 1959.”

His Republican opponent, James “Duke” Aiona, is relatively young at 55, but it’s not really young at all by Hawai‘i gubernatorial standards. If elected, Aiona would join Ben Cayetano as the oldest person to become governor since statehood.

It serves as a reminder that Hawai‘i’s roster of elected officials is aging even faster than our population — and there’s not much of a crop of young leaders coming up behind them.

One of our U.S. senators, Daniel Inouye, is running for reelection this year at 86 and the other, Daniel Akaka, says he’ll run again in 2012 at 88. Rep. Mazie Hirono is the baby on the Democratic side of our congressional delegation at 63.

If either senator steps down, the leading candidates to step up are hardly spring chickens — Linda Lingle, 57; Ed Case, 58; Mufi Hannemann, 56; and Hirono. Not exactly a lot of prime years left to build the kind of seniority that Inouye put to our advantage in nearly 50 years of service after being elected to the Senate at 38.

U.S. Rep. Charles Djou, at 40, is by far the youngest person holding one of Hawai‘i’s highest offices, and he’s under serious challenge by Colleen Hanabusa, 59.

The only statewide office that’s guaranteed to have a relatively young occupant is the mostly ceremonial post of lieutenant governor; Democratic candidate Brian Schatz is 38 and Republican Lynn Finnegan is 40. There are few others in the younger age bracket in the legislative ranks who seem good candidates to move up.

Whether it’s because our brightest young prospects have been squeezed out by a logjam at the top or because our special-interest driven system breeds followship more than leadership, political leadership seems to have skipped a generation here and is becoming one of Hawai‘i’s biggest sustainability problems.